Coventry chief says Premiership needs more clubs

Ben Harris scores a try for then-reigning champions Saracens at Coventry's Butts Park Arena in September 2023 — Coventry welcomed then-reigning Premiership champions Saracens to the Butts Park Arena in September 2023 in the Premiership Rugby Cup [Rex Features]

Coventry executive chairman Jon Sharp says the Premiership should be embracing new clubs - not tightening up the rules to keep them out, following the rejection of Championship leaders Ealing Trailfinders' promotion application.

As part of Tuesday's revelation that there will be no promotion and relegation between the top tiers of English rugby this season, third-placed Coventry, who trail Ealing by 17 points, also failed to reach the minimum standards ground criteria.

Eighth-placed Doncaster Knights, the one side to have beaten Ealing this season but 29 point adrift of top spot, were the only club to pass the requisite standards.

But, at a time when the English top flight is down to 10 clubs - from 13 three seasons ago, still shorn of financially-damaged trio Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish - Sharp wonders whether the criteria might be too stringent.

"They actually need new blood in the Premiership," Sharp told BBC CWR. "They need extra teams. They should be opening it up to make the Premiership 14 or 16 teams.

"Particularly at a time when the other nine Premiership clubs got together to produce a loan of £4m to Newcastle to bail them out."

Sharp revealed that Coventry took the test as a means of finding out exactly what it might take the club to make a renewed challenge for Premiership rugby in 2026.

"We made our application fully in the knowledge that we did not meet the minimum standards particularly the one referring to ground capacity of 10,001," he added.

"We wanted to go through the process so we knew what it was like. Now we're in a very good position to work on a few minor things to meet those criteria."

Coventry were one of the country's leading clubs at their old Coundon Road home when rugby union was still an amateur sport - and spent one season in the English top flight when the Courage League, the precursor to the Premiership, was first formed for 1986-87.

Their Butts Park Arena home currently has a capacity of 5,250 - almost half the minimum requirement.

But, when the club announced their intention in December 2024 to apply for a place in the Premiership, Sharp said that both Coventry City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority would help with "planning permissions that meet the Premiership's ground capacity requirements while also facilitating our wider redevelopment of the arena".

"We will develop the stadium," Sharp said. "We'll make ourselves the strongest club in the Championship and we will win the league. And don't write us off this season yet. We've got a few players coming back from injury - and that's made a big difference."

But the main stumbling block is the insistence that planning permission and a costed plan is in place before the start of the season.

"It's a million quid to get planning permission," he said. "Why should we spend all that money when we don't even know whether we're going to win the league? It's bonkers.

"We do know that that 10,001 number has been artificially created. It is being challenged and we certainly hope that it will be changed."

Responding to the Rugby Football Union board's claim that they have taken into account that the capacity is a major hurdle for Championship clubs by introducing a phased system - 5,000 in year one, 7,500 in years two and three before reaching 10,001 in year four - Sharp claims there is a big catch.

"It's not just having 10,001 in the fourth year it's having planning permission before the start of this season. Even if we win the league and the play-offs, will there be equality of funding? No there won't be.

"So, until a few things get straightened out it makes no sense whatsoever and it's very disingenuous of them to say there's a true pathway. There isn't."

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