The RFU council has “overwhelmingly approved” the biggest change to elite club rugby in England for almost 40 years by voting to turn the Gallagher Prem into a franchise league and scrap traditional promotion and relegation.
As revealed by The Sunday Times, the Prem will split from the rest of the English rugby pyramid at the end of this season. The top flight will then be relaunched as a 12-club expansion league in 2029–30, with an ambitious vision to reach 20 teams by 2040.
“We recognise that moving away from a traditional system of automatic promotion and relegation represents a significant change,” Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, said.
“However, it is equally clear that the professional game must evolve if it is to thrive. The previous structure was not delivering the financial stability, investment confidence or wider system benefits the game now requires.
“This reform is about safeguarding the future — creating a model that is ambitious, sustainable and capable of supporting the whole rugby community, from the grassroots to the international stage.”
Endorsing an overhaul of professional rugby was the penultimate decision that the RFU council, the body that represents the community game in England, is likely to ever make. On a significant day for the modernisation of the RFU, the council then voted to strip itself of all future decision-making authority.
A special general meeting will be called to approve the reforms. The proposal is for the council to be repurposed as an advisory group and reduced in size, handing more power to the board to make the RFU a “more efficient and nimble” governing body.
All Prem clubs will be required to either operate a team in Premiership Women’s Rugby or invest an agreed amount into grassroots women’s rugby
PAUL CURRIE/SHUTTERSTOCK
The Prem expansion model, the biggest change to the English system since leagues were introduced in 1987, was supported by 96 per cent of the RFU council. The vote to amend promotion into and relegation from the top flight from next season passed with 93 per cent in favour. It will be replaced by a “criteria-based expansion and demotion model”.
Expressions of interest for the expansion clubs are due to be invited at the start of the 2027-28 season. Aspirant clubs will be selected strategically, based on a range of factors including rugby excellence, geography, financial sustainability and investment capacity.
The RFU and Prem Rugby are keen to expand the league’s footprint by targeting regions including Yorkshire, East Anglia, Kent and Cornwall. The Times revealed on Thursday that the American owners of Birmingham City, who are backed by the former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, are interested in launching a professional rugby team in the city.
Expansion clubs will be required to buy a share in the Prem. The price will be set at “market value”, according to sources, which some insiders believe to be about £13.5million. Any club that wants to join the Prem will have to spend at least one season in the second-tier Champ. All Prem clubs will be required to either operate a team in Premiership Women’s Rugby or invest an agreed amount into grassroots women’s rugby in the region.
For clubs who are in the top flight, continued participation will be determined by a points system, similar to the IMG grading procedure used to allocate places in rugby league’s Super League.
The “balanced scorecard mechanism” would allocate points under three criteria: sporting success, infrastructure and long-term business plan, with a maximum score of ten. Clubs that consistently fall below a certain threshold, which is yet to be published, would be at risk of demotion from the league.
Worcester Warriors went bust in September 2022, but would be interested in joining the new league
DAVID DAVIES/PA
All stakeholders believe the new model will provide a “transparent pathway” into the top flight for aspirant clubs, attracting more investors such as Red Bull and Knighthead, the owners of Birmingham, to enter rugby. The Prem, they insist, will not be a closed league.
There are, however, multiple details behind the broad agreement that still need to be thrashed out, including Champ funding and the exact criteria for a club joining the Prem. The Champ believes an expansion club should have to win that league as a demonstration of “rugby excellence” before being allowed into the top flight. The Prem disagrees on the basis that on-field performance is only one factor.
There was no time to finalise all those points before the proposal was tabled at the RFU council meeting on Friday. Champ clubs supported the direction of travel after receiving written assurances from Mike McTighe, chairman of the Men’s Professional Rugby Board (MPRB), that their concerns would be addressed.
The Champ has always been committed to promotion and relegation. Simon Gillham, chairman of Champ Rugby, was a firm believer in the traditional system when he was appointed into the role.
Fundamentally, he still is. But Gillham has changed his perspective over the past 15 months because of the financial and infrastructure gap that exists between the Prem and Champ. Critics of the RFU argue that was a self-fulfilling prophecy once funding to the Champ was cut. It now sits at £4.2million.
“An absolute majority of Champ clubs have approved the direction of travel,” Gillham told The Times. “Things are not as we would like them to be. We put in a paper to the RFU and MPRB with a list of conditions that would have to be met to gain our full approval.
“I think it is much better for the whole of the game to try to take the train forward together rather than have another schism. We think the expansion piece can work. It won’t have traditional promotion and relegation, but it won’t be a closed league.”
There is technically a mechanism in place for promotion and relegation to occur this season, via a play-off. The RFU council would have changed the regulations mid-season if they felt they had to, which suggests there is little prospect of Ealing Trailfinders or Doncaster Knights being eligible for promotion.
Trailfinders have won the Championship three times, but never passed the audit to enter the top flight
TOM DULAT/GETTY
They were the only two clubs who applied for the two-stage audit, which examines minimum operating standards and financial health. Ealing, who are top, have always failed the audit on infrastructure. Doncaster, who sit ninth in the Champ but are not out of contention for the play-offs, passed the audit last year but have since gone part-time.
Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish, the three clubs who went bust between 2022-23, would all be interested in applying for a berth in the new expansion league. Birmingham and Cornish Pirates have both been mentioned as potential new entrants down the line, so too Cambridge given their location.
A new club office unit will be set up by the RFU and Prem Rugby — an idea borrowed from football’s La Liga in Spain — designed to help aspirant Champ and National League clubs become “investment-ready and capable of meeting the new minimum operating standards”.
Earlier start for Champions Cup ― but no changes to format
The European Champions Cup will begin in October for the first time in nearly a decade next season but organisers insist that the format will not change for the foreseeable future (Charlie Morgan writes).
In 2026-27 there will be one matchday weekend in October, and then another in December before back-to-back weekends in January and the beginning of the knockout rounds in April. The finals will be held in Lyon on the weekend of May 21-22 next year. The pools for the 2026-27 will be drawn on July 1, 2026.
European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR) acknowledged that the isolated weekends in October and December were not a “perfect landing”, but it is confident that the earlier start — the first in October since 2018-19 — will improve the tournament, which has been criticised for its lack of jeopardy and coherence in the early stages.
Despite this, Jacques Raynaud, the chief executive of EPCR, stressed that changes to the format are not imminent. “We’re not touching the format,” he told The Times. “It’s a calendar change, not a format change.
“There are lots of opinions out there, and we measure the sentiment from fans and discuss things with a lot of stakeholders. The format is ticking a lot of boxes when you look at stadium attendances and TV. We can further improve it and we are working on it.
“It stretches the season [by starting in October], it gets the cups into the narrative of the start of the season. It gets match days with better weather.”
Bordeaux Bègles defeated Northampton Saints in the Champions Cup final in May
DAVID ROGERS/GETTY IMAGES
Raynaud stressed that the aim is for back-to-back weekends of pool matches in October. However, this will not be possible until after the 2028-29 season because of “technical reasons” and then the 2027 World Cup.
“The stretch of the season into October is something that we have been working on because it has been asked for by fans, broadcasters and sponsors for a long time,” he said. “We’ve taken a decision that it was a step in the right direction, even if it wasn’t the perfect landing yet. The perfect landing is a two-week block.”