Super League deal ends schism

The deep and damaging division within a sport that could not afford it has been healed by the reunification of the Rugby Football League and Super League. Representatives of the professional clubs voted unanimously yesterday to reunite the game as well as approving the work of the Implementation Committee, which has been cutting a swath through RFL headquarters in preparation for the merger.

The two organisations had grown apart into two, sometimes antagonistic, camps since 1996, when the leading clubs in the country accepted a £87m deal with Sky and switched to a summer season. Although conceived as essentially a marketing organisation, Super League was seen increasingly to go its own way, while the impression grew of a bitterly divided game.

"The general public and sponsors saw a divided game,'' said the Swinton chairman, Malcolm White, a member of the Implementation Committee. "Now they can see a sport that has come together and which will be a far more attractive proposition.''

The Rugby League chairman, Sir Rodney Walker, said that talks were continuing with the amateur governing body, Barla, and that he was optimistic of bringing it under the same umbrella.

For now, however, there will continue to be two buildings in use, the RFL's headquarters on the outskirts of Leeds and Super League's in the middle of the city. "But the Super League staff and the remaining staff of the RFL will combine,'' said Maurice Lindsay, the Wigan chairman, who is also a member of the committee.

The difference now is that the commercial, marketing and media departments at all levels of the professional game will operate out of one building and the rugby and development staff from another. Savings on duplication of functions will save money immediately, Lindsay said, and the RFL's debts of £1.8m – largely result of the 2000 World Cup – will be wiped out within two years, he predicted.

The implementation committee has made six members of the Rugby League's staff redundant, with its director of rugby, Greg McCallum, expected to be the next to go.

The unified governing body will be headed by a new executive chairman, a position which the RFL has already advertised. "There have been 30 applications and we are very impressed by the calibre of those candidates,'' said Lindsay, who like the other members of the committee, has ruled himself out of contention for any role as a director of the new body. The executive chairman should be in place by the end of April, at which point Walker plans to stand down.

There will also be a business director and three non-executive directors with no separate chairmen or boards for Super League or Association of Premiership clubs. They will continue to hold meetings on matters which concern the clubs alone.

The reunification of two organisations that should never have been apart will be widely welcomed within the game, even though it took a financial crisis at the RFL to accelerate it. The moral victory, if there is one, is because it is the RFL whose name will be above the door.