The Rugby Football Union is set to make a record loss which could approach £40 million when its end-of-year accounts are published in the next month, Telegraph Sport can reveal.
The final figure, once the audited findings are released, is expected to comfortably trump the loss of £30.9 million sustained by the governing body in 2018, which led to the resignation of then chief executive Steve Brown a year out from the World Cup in Japan.
The accounts cover the 12 months to June this year, and the RFU expected to make a loss as the figure covers England’s World Cup campaign in France, with the competition also meaning Twickenham did not host any autumn internationals. Any RFU investments are also not taken into account for the £35 million-plus figure.
However, the scale of the loss, thought to be one of the largest suffered by an English sports governing body, is far greater than the £10 million the governing body posted in the financial year after the 2019 World Cup in Japan – a period in which England hosted only two Six Nations games, rather than the three they staged in 2024.
The RFU’s finances are said to have a strong balance sheet, no debt, significant cash reserves and positive ‘profit and loss’ reserves. The level of this year’s deficit is in part said to be explained by ‘investments’, with the underlying loss thought to be lower than the headline figure.
The news will increase the pressure on chief executive Bill Sweeney, with Steve Borthwick’s England having lost all three of their autumn internationals so far and facing the prospect of winning just five of their 12 games in 2024. Twickenham was virtually sold out for England’s consecutive defeats by New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, but tickets still remain for the visit of Eddie Jones’s Japan on Sunday.
Last year, the RFU reported an operating profit of £4 million, as well as paying off its Covid-related debts, but missed out on significant autumn revenue while the World Cup took place in France, with only two warm-ups – against Fiji and Wales – to garner crucial match-day funds. In September this year, the RFU announced a new £264 million, eight-year Professional Game Partnership deal with Premiership clubs.
But Sweeney has become well versed in financial firefighting at the home of English rugby. Within days of taking office, in 2019, Sweeney, 67, had to find in excess of £2.5 million in cuts to the professional game in England. And, in September this year, Telegraph Sport revealed how the RFU was set to make more than 40 redundancies in a mass restructure, the third of its kind in six years, despite signing a £100 million sponsorship deal with Allianz, which is understood to be included in next year’s accounts. A week before those redundancies were announced, Sarah Williams, finance director, resigned from her post with English rugby’s governing body.
It is understood that the RFU’s finances are planned in four-year cycles based on the timing of the men’s World Cup. There is an expectation at Twickenham that the fourth year – in this instance, 2024 – will always be loss-making due to fewer home matches, meaning reduced revenue and increased costs associated with attending a World Cup. Planning takes place to ensure that the RFU is able to invest all revenues back into rugby consistently over a four-year period.
When the RFU revealed in August that Twickenham would be changing its name to the Allianz Stadium, it pledged to invest further in the sport’s grass roots. That same stadium is due to undergo a £663 million refurbishment, provisionally slated for the 2027-28 season.
One source told Telegraph Sport that an operating loss had been “expected and planned” and were actually the results of over-performance compared to budget owing to “disciplined financial control”. In December 2023, Francis Baron, the former RFU chief executive, predicted a £59 million loss based on projections stemming from last year’s financial results.
The RFU council is due to convene as planned next Monday and it is thought that the loss will be a topic of discussion. Sources believe that, generally, the governing body is in a strong financial position with no debt and a “robust” cash position.
The RFU was approached for comment.