The Rugby Football Union has made the bold declaration that it wants to be “the strongest sport in England”, and that the country should be “the world’s leading rugby nation” by setting out plans to invest a record £443 million into the game, an increase of 30 per cent on its last four-year Strategic Plan.

The governing body also stated its target of winning the men’s World Cup in Japan in 2019 and the women’s World Cup two years later. In addition, there are clear goals to win more Six Nations titles as well as medals in the men’s and women’s sevens at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. There are initiatives in place to increase the number of RFU-owned artificial pitches around the country from the current six to 60 by the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

The assertion that rugby union could one day lay claim to being “the strongest” sport in the country could not have come at a more apposite time given the mess that the Football Association finds itself in. The RFU may never be able to match the participation levels of football but it makes no secret of its desire to “lead the way”, in the manner in which it conducts its business. On a specific level it has revisited all its internal processes and procedures in the light of the revelations of racism that led to the Football Association being arraigned in front of a Parliamentary select committee last week.