RFL backs Wilkin's £30m funding plea to Burnham

The new head of English rugby league has backed a call for Prime Minister Andy Burnham to approve a £30m five-year community funding plan for the sport.

Former England international Jon Wilkin has appealed directly to Burnham and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, both rugby league fans, to pledge government money to a rugby league-based social impact project.

Ian Nolan, the new chief executive of the Rugby Football League, has supported Wilkin's plea, issued on BBC Radio 5 Live's Rugby League show on Monday.

Wilkin wants Burnham and Nandy to follow the lead of Australia's government, which in July announced it was committing A$250m (£130m), external over 10 years to the Pacific Rugby League Partnership.

That initiative is designed to help create sporting, educational and employment opportunities in Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, and is being led by the Australian Rugby League Commission - the country's rugby league governing body.

Wilkin has argued that a similar plan for the north of England would benefit deprived communities.

He said: "Australia has recognised rugby league's potential as a vehicle for social change, committing hundreds of millions to developing communities, especially across the Pacific. Why shouldn't Britain show the same ambition for the north?

"The infrastructure already exists, the clubs, the foundations, the school and community relationships are already well established. What's missing is a coordinated strategy and meaningful government investment.

"The ask would be simple: For the government to establish a £30m five-year Northern Rugby League social impact partnership, bringing together the RFL, professional clubs, community foundations, local authorities and government departments.

"The programme would target disadvantaged northern communities."

Nolan, a former Manchester United executive who took up his role with the RFL on 1 October, suggested the social benefits of such an initiative would be felt more quickly because rugby league clubs are already established in their communities.

"When the government normally invest in community hubs and new things to generate something, they tend to be brand new," he said. "And it's really difficult then to attract people to go there because it's a new habit, it's a new place.

"But rugby clubs are already established in the most deprived towns in the UK. And that's the difference. People already go there. Families already rely on them for even just moving around."

BBC Sport has contacted the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for comment.

Nolan announced on Sunday that the RFL will be consulting English rugby league greats to map out a future for the national game under an initiative it is calling One Game, One England.

There is an acknowledgement within the governing body that the sport needs reform from grass-roots level upwards to ensure players of a high enough quality are developed to ultimately benefit the national team.

England's men and women have both exited the Rugby League World Cup at the group stage in the past few days - the first time neither team have reached the tournament's final four.

Wilkin has been highly critical of the set-up of the English game, arguing that an overcrowded Super League calendar - and the resulting lack of a mid-season international window - was a factor in England's disappointing World Cup.

Nolan is seeking ways to give domestic players higher quality fixtures, potentially in the style of the International Origin series - staged between 2011 and 2013, in which England played an Exiles team of overseas Super League players - or the War of the Roses, a representative fixture between Lancashire and Yorkshire, last played in 2003.

"I think there's a big opportunity for us to start to think of new Ashes-type series that we could play against the likes of Australia and New Zealand or even against France, or even domestically," Nolan said.

"We've had flashes with War of the Roses and even the Exiles games. Although they might not be international games, they're actually of an international standard.

"I think what we've done is we've always innovated and come up with these formats, but then we haven't given them a chance to really grow legs like State of Origin has in Australia. So I'm hopeful that we can come up with some innovations."

International rugby league as a whole is facing intense scrutiny at present, with the men's and women's calendar largely squeezed in at the end of the club season, in October and November.

Former England international Ryan Hall told BBC Radio 5 Live that the men's World Cup had suffered for being cut down from 16 to 10 teams this year - with Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Jamaica and Wales all missing out.

That decision was made after Australia stepped in to stage the tournament, which was postponed for a year when scheduled hosts France pulled out for financial reasons.

"I don't think it is a World Cup," Hall said. "The essence of any World Cup in any sport is that it's a festival of the sport.

"Compare it to the football World Cup. Curacao were one of the 48 teams in the World Cup.

"I'm not saying rugby league could get 48 teams in the World Cup because that's not achievable, but [they could] certainly [have] more than 10.

"It's meant to be a festival and showcasing everyone of all levels of different countries who's eligible to play."

Wilkin, meanwhile, suggested that international rugby league's exposure has suffered because of a lack of a free-to-air live television deal.

Premier Sports is showing all the World Cup matches live, with the BBC providing live radio coverage, along with online highlights and live text commentaries on selected games.

Rights were awarded by the International Rugby League, the sport's world governing body. Its chair Troy Grant told the iPaper last week, external that it made the decision to go with Premier because the BBC did not offer enough money, saying he was "disappointed that the BBC didn't stump up". No other free-to-air broadcaster made a suitable offer.

Wilkin said: "The BBC Sport mantra has gone from showing live sport to clipping up digital assets. It's a digital format now.

"And I suppose we're now trying to compete in a market for those scraps of digital content with every other football club in the country. And that is alarming, isn't it?

"The World Cup should have been on the BBC. There is no doubt in my mind as a public service broadcaster, this had so many reasons to be a slam dunk home run to be free to air on the BBC. It had to be."

BBC Sport has contacted the BBC for comment.