English second tier becomes 'Champ Rugby' with promise of easier promotion

LONDON :The second tier of English club rugby is to be relaunched as “Champ Rugby” with a new promotion and relegation structure and promises of an easier pathway into the Premiership for ambitious clubs previously stymied by exacting demands on ground capacity.

Revealed by the RFU on Thursday, the 14-team league for next season will include the 12 current clubs, a re-formed Worcester, who went bust and dropped out of the Premiership 2022, and Richmond, champions of the third tier National League this season.

All teams will play each other in home and away fixtures over 26 rounds, leading to playoffs and a final.

The champions will then face the Premiership's bottom club in a two-legged playoff, with promotion subject to the Champ club meeting the minimum standards criteria that have caused so much disquiet in recent years. There will also be relegation and playoffs at the bottom end of the table.

Ealing Trailfinders and others have routinely been kept out of the top tier by strict rules that demand a phased ground capacity of 10,001, or evidence of plans to be able to introduce such a development, as well as other financial commitments.

The clubs have argued that it is unreasonable and unrealistic to expect them to spend huge amounts on plans, let alone development, to reach a capacity they might never need.

Simon Gillham, Tier 2 Board Chair, told a media briefing that the way things happened this season (with only one club, Doncaster, ruled suitable for promotion) was "not satisfactory".

"It strikes one as a closed shop and protectionism and those are things that we really don’t want to see in sport," he said.

"We have an oral commitment that we will be revising those minimum standards. There needs to be a runway and a