Durham Sharks launch crowdfunding campaign in bid to save Premier 15s future

DMP Durham Sharks are fighting the ‘devastating’ prospect of sudden extinction from the Allianz Premier 15s with an emergency crowdfunding campaign.

The Darlington-based women’s rugby side have been part of the top flight since the league’s 2017 inception but now face a shortfall of what they estimate to be about £50,000 to cover basic running costs necessary to remain in the league.

The news came as a huge blow to nine-year Sharks veteran Emily Hunter, who could not help but marvel at the timing when their head of performance revealed the club would not be able to make ends meet – it was just days after the Lionesses’ Euro 2022 victory, when headlines across England heralded a new era for women’s sport.

“It feels like we go one step forward and then 20 back,” Hunter, one of several Sharks players who posted a team letter of appeal on social media this weekend, told the PA news agency.

Hunter said players are meeting with the Sharks’ chairman on Monday, one of the reasons they are racing against the clock to meet that day as a deadline.

“It actually just doesn’t make sense to me,” she said.  “I don’t understand how we can have successes from the Lionesses winning the Euros, the Red Roses winning the Six Nations and being the favourite to win the World Cup, England awarded the women’s T20 World Cup in 2026, all the fantastic women winning at the Commonwealth Games… Women’s rugby is at the forefront, and loads of money is getting invested, and I can’t make sense of it, that we’re in this situation.”

The team is also appealing to individuals or businesses willing to commit to underwriting any additional shortfall this season.

Commercial partners are increasingly seeing the appeal of women’s sport – from Barclays extending