THE same chair will run the Rugby Football League, Rugby League Commercial and Super League in an alignment of the sport’s leadership.
The RFL is now advertising the role, and the successful applicant will take leadership of the boards of the governing body and its commercial arm from Nigel Wood, who is currently interim chair of both.
In 2022, the RFL and Super League realigned to govern the sport and its competitions in one body, while setting up RL Commercial as a joint-venture to handle its commercial aspects.
At the behest of clubs, Wood replaced Simon Johnson as RFL chair in March, and has also been RL Commercial chair since the end of Frank Slevin’s term in July, but stressed both appointments would only be temporary.
The RFL say they are seeking a chair “who can lead the sport with rigorous governance experience, and strong commercial judgement” over a three-year term.
The job description says: “These organisations are entering an important phase of evolution whereby it will realign the companies under one group structure.
“This realignment will enable greater strategic clarity between its participation, performance, regulatory, and commercial functions.
“Against this backdrop, we are seeking to appoint a chair to lead the boards and help guide the organisations through its next chapter of strategic and operational development, bringing together the executive structures and businesses to ensure alignment, consistency and drive commercial growth.
“The chair will work closely with the chief executive, the executives and the other non-executive directors to devise and implement a strategic plan for the sport based on the findings of the recently concluded club-led strategic review with the goal of providing short-term and long-term stability and commercial growth.”
While there will be alignment in leadership, the RFL and RL Commercial will continue to operate separately across their differing remits.
Paul Lakin, Hull KR chief executive and a member of the RL Commercial board, told the League Express Podcast how the new structure will work.
He said: “If you go back a year, you had Frank Slevin as the chair of RL Commercial and Rhodri (Jones) as the MD (managing director). You had Simon Johnson as the chair of the RFL, then Tony Sutton as the chief executive of the RFL (he stepped down in September with Abi Ekoku now holding the role on an interim basis).
“So you had two chairs and two chief executives or managing directors.
“There’s only Rhodri left now. Nigel Wood is the interim chair of both bodies and the intention moving forward is to have a chair of both bodies and a group CEO, with Rhodri the MD and RL Commercial remaining as a unit within itself and reporting to the group CEO.
“It makes far more sense having two people running the game, the group chair and the CEO, rather than four different voices.”