Record losses and bumper bonuses – the pay row tearing apart English rugby

Bill Sweeney was made the best paid chief executive at a British sports governing body despite the RFU announcing record losses and 42 redundancies. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images

In a nutshell, what is the RFU pay dispute?

When the Rugby Football Union published its annual report at the end of November, on the back of a lacklustre autumn campaign for England, it emerged the chief executive, Bill Sweeney, was paid £1.1m for the year ending June 2024, which included a one-off £358,000 bonus as part of a long-term incentive plan (LTIP) scheme. It also emerged five other executive directors shared a bonus of close to £1m while the annual report showed record losses to reserves of £42m. In the ensuing weeks the calls for the chairman, Tom Ilube, and Sweeney to go have grown louder across all levels of the English game.