In these pages we recently published a piece on the hidden pressures of professional rugby union. There was a significant response, including one email that should be compulsory reading for the game’s authorities. Ben Hooper is a 28-year-old prop forward plying his trade in the Championship and, on behalf of every player in the second tier of English rugby, he feels compelled to speak out.

Hooper is the younger brother of Bath’s recently-retired captain Stuart Hooper but, despite pursuing a career in the same sport, he inhabits a parallel universe. Championship players, he alleges, are being let down by their own union, receive insufficient funding from the Rugby Football Union and are open to exploitation by people with scant interest in their physical or mental well-being. “We are rugby’s forgotten men,” he writes. “We take the same risks, put in the same hours and make the same sacrifices with few of the benefits. The RFU Championship has become the wild west of professional rugby.”

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If either the RFU or the Rugby Players’ Association is interested, on the eve of this week’s play-off final first leg between Bristol and Doncaster Hooper is aware of numerous horror stories. Many player contracts, for example, contain weasel clauses allowing clubs to dismiss players on the flimsiest pretext. One club once told a player it would pay his wages for only 11 months of the year, rather than 12, because there were no matches in June. Another coach, having announced a swingeing wage cut, gave players just seven days to sign up to the reduced terms or be summarily released. In one recent Championship match, there were delays in assessing players from both sides for potential concussion because of a shortage of available medical expertise.

The Guardian has also learned, from another source, of a Championship club where funds earmarked for players’ insurance were used to sign extra players, with existing squad members told to arrange their own cover.

Hooper, who is joining Nottingham this summer after four years at Yorkshire Carnegie, loves his sport but feels enough is enough. “Yorkshire Carnegie and Nottingham have been fantastic with me and done their upmost to support me,” he writes, “but I know a number of other players who aren’t so lucky.” He says Championship players are not asking for the earth – they mostly earn a fraction of their Premiership cousins – but are seeking fairer treatment.

As a minimum requirement they want the RPA to lobby for the standard contracts that exist for Premiership players, a league-wide contract negotiation window, a minimum wage for Championship players funded by the RFU, basic health cover and a union rep at every Championship club. At present Championship sides receive £530,000 apiece in annual central funding in a deal that extends until 2020, but those at the sharp end argue this is insufficient to fund a fully professional second tier.

Unless things change, warns Hooper, English rugby will not just stand accused of letting down tomorrow’s young stars, for whom the Championship remains an essential proving ground, but of turning its back on its most vulnerable constituents. He also believes the RPA “fails to do its job of protecting players” by concentrating almost exclusively on the Premiership. “They do offer a ‘Championship Membership’ which costs £85 but the benefits are negligible. Tax advice and 20% off a £3,000 television aren’t at the forefront of your mind when you have two months left of a contract worth £10,000 a year and bills to pay.”

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It is a daunting equation. Hooper repeatedly makes clear he considers himself fortunate to pursue rugby as a career but the realities of his “dream job” can be desperately stark. “When I left university I did what everyone else does, I got a job. I joined a local rugby club and played on a Saturday. I played well, got spotted by a coach at a Championship club and he offered me my first professional contract worth £11,000. This was half of what I was earning in my graduate job at a sports marketing agency. What I didn’t realise is that as a tighthead prop I’d managed to do quite well.

“There were people in the squad on £6,000 a year. I don’t expect the wages to be of a Premiership standard – rugby is a business – but there should be a minimum level to avoid player exploitation. Anything goes from the clubs and as players we have little or no option but to go along with it. We have no voice, and nowhere to turn.”

Hooper also fears many players are struggling to cope mentally in an environment boasting none of the financial advantages of top-flight rugby yet all of its inherent dangers. “The pressures of professional sport are rigorous; you are watched and analysed on everything, day in, day out. Imagine taking those risks while earning less than £10,000 a year? I have had my dark days throughout my career and I’m sure there are more to come. I’m lucky, I’ve got a degree and work experience. The majority of Championship players do not.”

When contacted by the Guardian, the RPA’s chief executive Damian Hopley said he sympathised with the players’ predicament but stressed the RPA was itself “hamstrung” and “compromised” by a lack of funding. The RFU, in a statement, insisted it remained “fully committed to the development of a professional English second-tier competition.”

It can only be hoped more help is forthcoming. Hooper is the very best kind of whistleblower, motivated simply by a desire to assist every professional player, not just the elite few. He also knows this is a story not everyone wants to hear. “When cyclists first started to talk about drugs in the grand tours and breaking the code of silence it was referred to as “spitting in the soup”. I feel this is the same with the true state of professionalism in rugby. On the outside everything is rosy. The sport is growing, a deal has just been done to increase funding for Premiership clubs to an eye-watering £6m a year. I think, however, that I have a responsibility to spit in the soup.”

He is doing so on behalf of all “forgotten men” and his message should be shouted from every rooftop.