{"id":621474,"date":"2026-06-04T21:44:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/621474\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T21:44:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:44:06","slug":"rfu-council-member-punished-for-maggie-alphonsi-comment-on-facebook-rugby-football-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/621474\/","title":{"rendered":"RFU council member punished for Maggie Alphonsi comment on Facebook | Rugby Football Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Rugby Football Union<\/a> council member has had his privileges suspended for seven months after making a discriminatory comment about the England World Cup winner and pundit Maggie Alphonsi.<\/p>\n

Matthew Smith, who represents Warwickshire, made the comment on Facebook about the 42-year-old during France\u2019s 48-46 win against England in the Six Nations earlier this year. He posted: \u201cCan someone please explain to me WTF does Maggie Alphonsi know about men\u2019s rugby?\u201d<\/p>\n

An independent disciplinary panel handed him a one-year ban but lowered it to seven months because of mitigation. They cited his support of a 2025 girls\u2019 rugby festival and also took into consideration his service to the sport. He has had his RFU Council privileges and access to RFU premises removed until 14 December, which includes match tickets and travel expenses.<\/p>\n

Smith will be able to attend meetings virtually and still holds his voting rights. The RFU does not have the power to remove a council member, a decision that would have to be made by Warwickshire and its members.<\/p>\n

Alphonsi, who won seven Six Nations titles<\/a> in her career before retiring in 2014, has said she is \u201cdisappointed\u201d with the outcome of the hearing.<\/p>\n

In a statement, she said: \u201cI have to publicly defend myself which will likely lead to further misogyny and sexism from people who equally hold this view. I also have to drag this incident up again rather than be done with it, which has obviously led to greater frustration and distress.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing forward I will now likely have to endure further criticism, but Mr Smith initiated this incident and the only punishment he will receive is not getting hospitality tickets to some England games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am extremely disappointed with this. It shows sexism and misogyny still exists within the game and it\u2019s important it is stamped out and called out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith sent a letter of apology to Alphonsi after his punishment was confirmed.<\/p>\n

He said separately: \u201cI shouldn\u2019t have shared my view online and apologise if this has caused any offence to anyone. Once I realised my error of judgment I immediately removed the post on the Saturday night\/early hours Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can assure you that I had no intent of causing any offence and that unfortunately I made an error of judgment which was hampered by personal stress and anxiety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alphonsi, who spent nine years serving on the RFU council, was the first former women\u2019s player to work as a pundit in men\u2019s Test rugby in the UK. She has been an established member of ITV\u2019s punditry team since the 2015 World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Rugby Football Union council member has had his privileges suspended for seven months after making a discriminatory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-621474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}