The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has today announced a major organisational restructure following the arrival of John Steele as Chief Executive in September 2010.

The changes, unanimously approved by the RFU Board of Directors, will ensure the organisation is in the best shape for the challenges currently facing the game as it approaches the five year run up to the Rugby World Cup in 2015 in England. The agreed changes will create a new streamlined executive leadership with more emphasis on delivering rugby at all levels and will simplify the organisational structure and way of working.

A new, single, rugby department will be created which will be divided into three areas - Performance, Operations and Development - with new director roles created in each area reporting directly to the CEO. All rugby elements of the business will be integrated within the new rugby department to deliver clearer purpose and accountability, which will in turn improve the quality of experience from the top to the bottom of the game in England.

In addition, two other new roles will be created with enhanced responsibilities. A Chief Commercial Officer role responsible for all of the revenue generating elements of the business and an enhanced Chief Financial Officer role encompassing all the corporate support services. All the new roles will be advertised from next week and will be subject to an open recruitment process. It is expected that internal and external candidates will apply.

Also as part of the reorganisation a number of RFU executives have left the business with immediate effect as their roles no longer exist within the new structure. Andrew Scoular, Nick Bunting, Terry Burwell, Richard Prescott and Ian King depart from their roles as Community Rugby Director, Head of Planning, Funding and Resources, Tournaments and Competitions Director, Elite Team Media Director and Head of HR.

Martyn Thomas, Chairman of the RFU Board of Directors, commented: “When we hired John we said we were confident he had the vision and the drive to ensure we could take the RFU to the next phase of its growth and today he has proved that was true. His initial recommendations, which we were unanimous in approving, were based on deep insight and clear evidence and John has our total support. The changes we are making signal a changing of the guard and the new refreshed leadership team will give the RFU new impetus and a clearer strategic direction not just at the Elite end of the game but across the whole game. We will emerge from the next few months a stronger, more effective union and John is to be applauded for taking the tough decisions needed to get there and for delivering the changes in a way that is cost neutral to the business.”

John Steele added. “I have spent the last few months gathering insight and views on how the RFU could better serve the game. I have toured England talking to staff, clubs, players, sponsors and any other rugby stakeholders I could spend time with to find out what we were good at and where we could improve. What became clear is that while we had a sound commercial platform, we did not have enough focus on the quality of the rugby experience across the game. So the new structure puts rugby right at the centre of the business and seeks to create more rugby expertise to benefit all levels of the game.

“The next five years will be some of the most exciting in the RFU’s history and I wanted to make sure we are in the right shape as an organisation to seize the opportunities in front of us. These new executive roles are a huge opportunity to ensure that we have the brightest and the best people leading the business moving forward.”