Dear all, 

On Thursday night, RFU Members – amateur and professional clubs, constituent bodies and referee societies - will have a chance to vote on two important motions facing the game. Voting is in fact already open for those who want to get ahead of this. 

The first intends to express no confidence in our CEO, and the second, which we have put forward, intends to expedite governance reforms which will help devolve more decision-making power to members so they can determine what is right in their local area.

This is an important moment for the game and so I urge our members to vote and not to presume their vote isn't needed.

The first motion arose because a number of members clearly felt frustrated by the challenges they are seeing around the game and because they believed that forcing our CEO out would help change that.

While I do not doubt their concern - and we have heard some of the same issues loud and clear travelling the country to meet hundreds of members in recent weeks - a vote of no confidence in our CEO will not change this for the better.  

The reality is that it will simply delay the opportunity the RFU wants to take to continue to make the changes we know members want to see. 

Like many other unions around the world, we face challenges in a range of areas like adult male participation, like the investment required to build the infrastructure players now expect of their clubs and in making sure that our members truly feel an understanding and connection to our union.

A large number of our members want to see the RFU do things differently, modernise its structures and see other improvements in delivery.

We want this too which is why in my letter to you on February 25 I set out the areas we were targeting.

You can read more information about them in Our Commitment to the Community Game but our focus in the months ahead will be on these key areas:

1. Better overall communications with the game
2. Governance reform
3. Reducing the admin burden on clubs
4. Rebuilding our development officer network
5. More innovative support to help clubs have better access to funding
6. Modernising our competition structures

Voting against the first motion this Thursday will allow us to get on with this job and not spend months consumed by the rancour and disruption that this process has brought.

There have been elements of the campaign against the RFU in recent weeks that have been deeply regrettable with demonstrably misleading claims, particularly around the game’s finances, which are in reality in robust shape, and the work to join up the professional game, where there are complex issues and where clubs are emerging from a very challenging few years following the pandemic.

All of this playing out publicly has detracted from so many of the brilliant things happening in English rugby: from the incredible work of the volunteers running our grassroots game, to the strong men’s Six Nations showing and now the focus on our Red Roses as they build to a home World Cup.

The challenges our sport faces require us all to work together and to present our sport in the light it should be seen in – as an incredible force for good but one which – now more than ever – requires constant innovation and support. 

From having had the chance to meet so many members in recent weeks, I believe the spirit of collaboration is very much alive and I hope that we can work together to deliver the change we all want, and to celebrate the enormous positives there are in the game rather than focus on the negatives. 

Finally, our motion around the governance of the game is also crucial. Supporting it ensures we have a mandate to speed up the ongoing consultation to help us bring forward governance structures that are fit for the modern era of the sport in which we operate.

To those of you with a vote: please do use it to back what we are doing and to help bring around real change and progress.