BY JOHN DAVIDSON
Exclusive: European Rugby League (ERL) has responded to serious claims made about its participation figures and the governance of the sport in Ireland.
Former Rugby League Ireland (RLI) chair Barry Code made a series of statements yesterday, which can be read here.
rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads put these statements to David Butler, ERL general manager, and here is his response.
“The number you refer to is ‘registered participants – coaches, match officials, players’,” Butler said.
“Obviously RLI cannot supply their database due to GDPR. The breakdown of the 501 quoted figure is: Domestic Clubs (Men): 166, Domestic Clubs (Women): 55, Domestic Clubs (U14sM): 116, Wheelchair: 5, Pathways: 159, Total: 501.
“This does not include coaches and match officials, so if anything the number has potentially been under-reported.
“Numbers were submitted by RLI as part of the International Rugby League’s Annual Membership Audit. We ask National Federations to supply us the same numbers which they supply to their National Sports Agency (in this case Sport Ireland) to ensure consistency.
“We do not as a matter of course audit the numbers, because in several National Federation’s cases that would need too much resource. The main measure is to ensure that Nation Federations are over the threshold of 250 registered players required for Full Membership.
“However, we consider the numbers submitted in relation to previous years’ submissions, the stated volume of teams and representative activity, etc to sense check that numbers are realistic.
“In the example above, 166 Men over five competing teams is an average of 33 players per side – from my experience of being involved in a community club in England, I would say that holds water.”
Asked how many clubs are operating in Ireland currently, Butler responded: “For the 2024 season that information will be collated as part of the IRL’s Annual Membership Audit which is conducted during Q1 in 2025. You would need to contact Rugby League Ireland for their 2024 data.”
Asked about the demotion of Ireland by the IRL, Butler said: “RLI recorded two consecutive years of not being compliant with the Full Membership policy on three of the participatory provisions of the policy (number of teams competing in its senior fixtures & fixture completion, running a junior competition & fixture completion and clubs running both seniors and juniors).
“Once identified as non-compliant, a national federation has two years to correct its compliance, ie. non-compliant in Year 2021 (Audit takes place Q1 2022) would give Years 2022 and Years 2023 to achieve compliance.
“A decision on compliance / non-compliance would be taken based on AMA 2023 (Audit taking place Q1 2024).
“The policy of the ‘normative two years corrective action period’ was introduced in 2020. Every National Federation after every AMA receives a letter either confirming their compliance or detailing the shortcomings and corrective action required.
“It is worth noting that RLI has been serially non-compliant with the Full Membership Policy and not met the criteria in any year for over a decade.”
