It’s a decision which in a cold hard look at finance can be justified but the decision by the English Rugby Football Union to cancel the professional contracts of its Women’s Rugby World Cup panel is one that is impossible to understand in the wider picture of promoting the sport.

The decision was taken and advised to the players in the spring but has only come to light now two weeks before the most successful team in the sport defends its World cup Crown in Dublin and Belfast.

The defence is that the focus has to switch to supporting the sevens team, given the ‘cyclical’ nature of the sport though no such splitting or differentiation would be considered in the Men’s game.

English Rugby is different to what we have in Ireland with the Men’s substantially larger contracts being held by the professional clubs.

In Ireland the four provinces are part of the IRFU and central contracts are an essential part of the professional sport.

In the Women’s game, all the Irish team hosting Rugby World Cup Finals on this Ireland in full for the first time are amateur.  Captain Niamh Briggs is a member of an Garda Siochana.  Lyndsay peat is a teacher, Marie Louise Reilly is a Sports officer with Dublin City Council and Sophie Spence has just started a new job with Bank of Ireland.

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There are central contracts for the Irish Sevens team and the increased level of support for them does has a spill over to the 15’s game through players doubling up.  It has reaped reward on the pitch as well with the team qualifying for next year’s World Cup.

In England though the professional nature of central contracts awarded after winning the World Cup in 2014 was hailed as an important step forward in the long term journey towards equality in sport.

It was to herald France reportedly following suit after this year’s tournament and in time the hope was always that players attracted to play the game at an early age through seeing the achievement of great players would have an opportunity to make a living from the very top end of the sport in the same way as their brothers.

There were sixteen full-time contracts for players at the very top of the game, 16 more part time covering the costs of lost earnings and attendance at camps and 16 more again geared towards the sevens game.

Now though the first two are to be cancelled.

This will reportedly be reversed again in the next cycle ahead of the 2021 Women’s Rugby World Cup, but not until after next year’s World Cup in the USA and the Olympics in Tokyo.

Current players have held their counsel, concerned rightly with performance in two weeks time but those around them have expressed their views. Maggie Alphonsi who captained the team to victory in Paris three years ago has described the decision as “disappointing” and various MP’s have come out against it as well.

Arguments have rolled around on social media that “Women don’t deserve it because there is more interest and more money in the Men’s game.”

But how do you break the cycle in sport so that the two are treated as different games but with equal respect and equal opportunity?  It’s a basic principle of a civilised society that we value all our people equally.  Why should sport be given a pass?

This is not a question of a differential in payment, it is the principal of any payment.  England is riding the crest of a wave in Women’s sport at present.  The soccer team is competing at the Euro 2017 Championship, the Cricket team won the World Cup in dramatic and highly public fashion on Sunday.  An English woman made it to the semi finals of Wimbledon for the first time since 1977 and earned more in doing so than Andy Murray who was knocked out at the Quarter Final stage.

We need to stand up for the right of our daughters, wives, sisters and friends to see sport as being for them in every way.  It’s not good enough to say it will take time and use that as an excuse for not acting now.

It will be interesting to see if there is a reaction to this from RFU sponsor O2 whose logo is emblazoned across both the Men’s and Women’s shirts.

Sport has the capacity to make our lives more special.  It’s highs leave lasting memories.  But when it treats its players like this it can be a dark place indeed.

Image Credit: Inpho