RL Cares chief executive Chris Rostron outlines the charity’s vision for player welfare, explains why its independence is vital and issues a rallying call for fans to show their support.
SINCE its formation more than a decade ago, Rugby League Cares has continued to evolve to meet the needs of the people who live, work and play in the villages, towns and cities where rugby league is played.
From programmes designed to boost the mental wellbeing of young people, to projects focusing on heritage and history through to initiatives supporting some of the sport’s most vulnerable individuals, RL Cares makes a positive impact on the lives of thousands of people.
In recent years, the sport’s official charity has had a greater focus on delivering wellbeing and welfare support to players, having taken on responsibility for this role from the RFL in 2019.
Chris Rostron has been the head of the charity since its inception, having previously worked with the charitable foundations at Bradford Bulls and Leeds Rhinos.
You’ve led Rugby League Cares since the very beginning: how did the charity come about, and how did you get involved?
There were a number of reasons to develop RL Cares. In the first instance, it was an effort to bring together existing charities that were all doing good things, but potentially cannibalising on each other, and as such being less effective. There was also an opportunity to do more through charity that would benefit the sport, particularly in areas where the RFL couldn’t, or was less likely, to be successful such as the development of the sport’s heritage programme.
How much has changed over the last 10 years, both in terms of the work of the charity and its role within the sport?
The two main areas of change have been our community and welfare departments. Community has expanded significantly. RL Cares was turning over approximately £50,000 but now, when combined with the work of the RL Benevolent Fund, the two charities are turning over circa £2 million. A lot of the major developments have been through our community programme with high profile national partnerships with Movember, NHS and large businesses.
The second area which has seen rapid growth and development is our provision of wellbeing and welfare support to the sport’s players. This has gone from what was essentially a grant-making scheme to a comprehensive programme of elite athlete wellbeing services which focus on the emotional, physical and social health of the sport’s players. The real revolution, in laymen’s terms, has been to support their development as good people. This might sound a bit trite, but ensuring they can form good healthy relationships, understand their finances, can take care of their emotional and physical wellbeing and are developing plans for when they retire all contribute to players being successful in life and on the field. We conduct an audit every year on the clubs’ wellbeing and welfare provision and it’s no surprise that the sport’s most successful clubs on the pitch are the ones who work closely with us on the athlete wellbeing programme. The two go hand in glove.
Being a professional athlete is a peculiar existence which starts at a young age and dominates the person’s life during their formative years and early-adult life. In some ways their lives are turned upside down: many of the experiences people go through during their later years, when they perhaps have more resources and deposable wealth, are being navigated at a young age. This is combined with everything being very prescribed, controlled and monitored, for example diet, exercise and recovery. There is also the recognition and fame, plus the unique experience of playing in front of large crowds and major events.
Their world revolves around performance and competition. This may sound exciting, but without balance and realism it can also be damaging to a person’s sense of identity and future life chances.
Our job at RL Cares is to ensure that players are well-rounded individuals, who can make the most of their time as a professional player and look forward to a fulfilling, worthwhile and enjoyable life once they retire.
How important is it that RL Cares maintains its independence?
Building relationships and trust is so important to our work. To play a positive and influential role with someone, there has to be trust. This often extends to a player’s family. Being an independent charity, with the focus on the person and their ongoing wellbeing helps establish trust and a positive relationship with the players.
Having been developed by the RFL in 2012, and through our ongoing relationship with the governing body, people often mistakenly believe that we are the RFL. We are not, we are the sport’s charity, which means we work on behalf of the sport and its people. We run independently to the RFL, Rugby League Commercial, the clubs and any other stakeholder in the sport.
We have a contract with the RFL to deliver the welfare policy on behalf of the sport and its players. The policy doesn’t cover every finite scenario that people face during their time in the sport, which often means there will be situations where the charity decides how to help someone. In fact, our ability to work with individual players is where the charity has been most successful and all starts with trust.
People often say that we don’t do enough to promote ourselves. In some ways this is true, but confidentially and discretion are vital elements in building a positive and trusted relationship with the sport’s players. I would say people can hear about the charity and its purpose, but they shouldn’t expect to be informed about what we do with any individual player. That’s nobody’s business but the player’s and whoever is supporting them.
What I would say is that no other organisation in rugby league does more for the broad community of players than RL Cares.
What relationships does RL Cares have with the NRL and indeed other sports?
We’ve developed a very strong working relationship with our colleagues in the NRL. This is vital in that many of our players are now playing in the Australian competition. Similarly, many southern hemisphere players are playing in Super League and the Championship competitions. On that level there is an ongoing practical relationship to maintain.
Some members of the RL Cares team occasionally travel to Australia and New Zealand to meet colleagues and players to ensure that the relationship is maintained, as do NRL staff in this direction. Our respective wellbeing and welfare programmes are very similar and mirror many of the same activities. I’m proud that RL Cares has been able to develop in this way: we don’t have the same finances as the NRL, but the charity provides significant subsidy to the sport’s current programme to ensure that it is in step with what happens Down Under. However, we have kept up to, and in some areas surpassed, our friends in Australia with the work we’ve been doing.
I must pay tribute to colleagues at the NRL and the RLPA for their continued support in this way: they are and always have been incredibly supportive and we all hope they feel the same about ourselves and the way we are working.
We recently became members of the Professional Association of Athlete Development Specialists, PAADS, a network of the world’s biggest and most successfully sports such as the NFL, Premier League, NBA, Major League Soccer, NRL and now, RL Cares.
The network shares best practice in athlete development and it’s an honour to be involved.
There is a conference coming up in May and we have been invited to present. This is very exciting and an opportunity to share some of the outstanding work we have been doing alongside our clubs and the sport. Having been part of PAADS for the last 12 months, I would say that we are up there with some of the very best sports in the world in the way we look after our athletes in rugby league.
How is RL Cares funded?
Like all charities our funding comes from a variety of sources. I mentioned the contract we have with the sport; this ultimately contributes to the costs of delivering its welfare policy. The charity spends far more delivering welfare services than we receive, and this is why we fundraise.
Our fundraising programme delivers some incredible experiences and raises the funds we need to maintain the RL Benevolent Fund, helping seriously injured players and programmes such as the Brain Health Fund supporting former players suffering with neurodegenerative disease such as dementia.
We also secure grants, with our biggest supporter being Movember. This partnership has been incredible over the years and has enabled us to support the mental wellbeing of junior rugby players in pretty much all our community clubs, deliver the mental health charter for the RLWC 2021 and meet countless fans in fan zones at major events
We also benefit massively from very generous and supportive donors, such as the Steve Prescott Foundation and the Francis Arthur Brooks charity.
Finally, we work with commercial organisations who buy into our wellbeing programmes for their employees. The biggest and perhaps most successful example of this is our work alongside the NHS, SSE, Murphy’s Construction and Howorth Air Technology.
Fundraising by charities is getting harder every year. Having said that, we work extremely hard and raise well over a million pounds across the two charities annually. I will finish with an appeal to the readers of this article: please join the charity for what is essentially the cost of a round of coffees, please join our membership programme. You will be doing a lot to support the people in the sport you love.
How can people support the charity and the important work it does?
RL Cares is privileged to be such a highly-regarded member of the rugby league family, and to be able to provide the support we do. Support should work both ways and that’s why we encourage people to help our work by becoming members of the charity.
Membership costs just £20 a year – that’s less than the price of a coffee every month – and comes with a whole load of benefits, as well as the satisfaction of knowing you’re helping a very worthy cause. We have a dedicated members’ newsletter which is packed full of detailed news and information about the work of the charity; members also receive special offers and discounts from our commercial partners and get priority access to our fantastic events programme.
Members can also book a place on our forthcoming Ashes dinner at a discounted rate not available to any other member of the public. We’ve already sold 170 places for the event, with lot of travelling Australian fans booking. The event will be a sell-out, with just over 200 places available at the venue, the Marriott Hotel, Leeds.
To join Rugby League Cares as a member, please visit bit.ly/4hJHUx6
First published in Rugby League World magazine, Issue 509 (June 2025)