Stuart Hooper to leave ECB over rugby rebel league role
Stuart Hooper, a former player and director of rugby at Premiership side Bath, will exit the ECB next week having resigned amid his role as co-founder and chief commercial officer with R360 being revealed.
Insiders said his role had become 'untenable' and that ECB officials were unimpressed by the arrangement when they learnt about it earlier this year.
Telegraph Sport revealed last month that the former second row, who also played for Saracens, Leeds and represented England Saxons, is one of the driving forces behind the proposed new league.
Hooper, 43, was director of cricket operations for the England men's team, a key logistical role that organises the playing schedule and liaises with other nations' boards. He had only been with the ECB for around 18 months, having been hired to replace another rugby man, the former Ireland fly-half David Humphreys, who himself had a short stay at the ECB before leaving to take up a role with the Irish Rugby Football Union.
Earlier this month, Telegraph Sport reported further information on R360, a breakaway league promising to pay rugby players seven-figure salaries by establishing new franchise teams and taking the game on a 'grand prix style' tour around the world.
Hooper was named as one of the key players behind the competition, despite having worked for the ECB for the past 18 months. Also involved are the World Cup winner and member of the Royal Family Mike Tindall, the former players' agent Mark Spoors, and John Loffhagen, a lawyer who has been involved with LIV Golf and the IPL.
By taking players out of the traditional club model, R360 represents a direct threat to the rugby establishment, with Premiership Rugby broadcasters TNT Sports recently describing the plans as 'delusional'.
Hooper has resigned and is serving his notice period, which ends next week. He will be replaced internally by Rob Hillman, with ECB staff informed of the change on Friday.
The ECB has moved quickly to replace Hooper, but still has another key role to fill. Tony Singh, the chief commercial officer, will leave to join Netflix later this summer. His replacement is likely to be heavily involved in securing the next major broadcast deal. The current deal with Sky, worth £220 million per year, runs out at the end of the 2028 summer, and is a key plank of the ECB's financial model.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
42 minutes ago
- The Independent
Ministers face fresh challenge to welfare reforms in Wednesday votes
Ministers face a fresh challenge to their welfare reforms from Labour backbenchers, who have warned that the Government is being 'stubborn and obstinate' in its efforts. The Department for Work and Pensions will try to steer the Universal Credit Bill through its final Commons stages, including clause-by-clause scrutiny, on Wednesday. The Bill, if agreed to, would roll out two different rates of benefit for claimants who cannot currently work. It would also freeze the limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCW and LCWRA) elements of the benefit until 2030. The PA news agency understands that a 'substantial number' of Labour rebels have agreed to vote to gut the Bill of these reforms, if they can trigger a division. When MPs debated the reforms last week, Government frontbenchers rolled back on their plan to reform the separate personal independence payment (Pip) benefit, vowing to revisit any proposed changes only after a review by social security minister Sir Stephen Timms. 'The Government for all the goodwill of pulling clause five on Pip, they've lost it over being so stubborn and obstinate over clauses two and three,' Labour MP for York Central Rachael Maskell said. Clause two of the Bill includes a framework for two rates of LCWRA, with claimants who are eligible for the benefit before April 2026 able to claim a higher rate than later applicants. Claimants who are terminally ill or who have severe symptoms of an illness which 'constantly' apply would also be eligible for the higher rate, regardless of when they become eligible. Ms Maskell has proposed a change to the reforms, so that someone who has slipped out of and then back into the LCWRA eligibility criteria either side of April 2026 would still be able to claim the higher rate. Approving this change would be like 'gathering up the crumbs rather than getting the full course meal', she said. Asked what the Government should do to tackle welfare costs, Ms Maskell told the PA news agency: 'We've got to put the early interventions in to take people off this path of ill health. 'We've got quite a sick society at the moment for all the reasons that we know, a broken NHS, you know, social care not being where it should be, and of course long-term Covid. 'All of that is having its impact, and the endemic mental health challenges that people are facing. 'But to then have the confidence that your programme is so good that it's going to get loads of these people into work and employers are going to have to fulfil their obligations in the future hopefully after the Charlie Mayfield report (the Keep Britain Working review) will make those recommendations – all of that, great, as far as it goes. 'But what we can't do is leave those people that can't work in poverty, because they would love to work and earn money, but they can't, so we have to pay for it. 'And therefore the people who've got the good fortune of earning money, whether it's through income or assets, they're the people that are going to have to support a wider society.' Labour MP for Poole Neil Duncan-Jordan proposed gutting the Bill through a series of draft amendments, to strike clause two and cancel the freeze in clause three. He and Ms Maskell were two of 49 MPs who unsuccessfully tried to block the Bill at second reading, when it cleared its first Commons hurdle by 335 votes to 260, majority 75. Amid fears the Bill had been rushed through Parliament, and referring to the Liberal reformer William Beveridge who published a post-war blueprint for the welfare state in 1942, Mr Duncan-Jordan asked: 'Beveridge didn't design the welfare state on the back of a postage stamp, did he?' Beyond changes to parts of the benefit specifically for people who cannot currently work, the Bill would demand an above-inflation rise to the universal credit standard allowance each year until 2030.
BBC News
43 minutes ago
- BBC News
Dragons sign backs Lloyd and Richards
Dragons have signed fly-half Jac Lloyd and utility back David Wales Under-20s player Lloyd, 22, joins Dragons after impressing at Newport RFC and having previously had spells at Bristol Bears and Hartpury returns to Dragons having previously played four times for the 25-year-old also arrives from Newport RFC."Both players know what it takes in a professional environment and are eager to grab the chance when it comes," said Dragons head coach Filo Tiatia.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Mortgage timebomb set to hit a million households: Golden era of cheap loans comes to an end
Five years ago this week, then Chancellor Rishi Sunak lit a fire under the property market with a generous stamp duty cut which prompted a home-buying boom. With the pandemic less than three months old, buyers rushed off to buy bigger homes in a 'race for space' and took advantage of mortgage rates that had tumbled because of emergency Bank of England rate cuts.
