Sir Bill Beaumont’s epic feat in helping to extinguish one of the biggest fires to engulf English rugby in years earned a fitting tribute on Friday: ‘Bill is the Red Adair of rugby.’
That was John Inverdale’s verdict and a reference to the man who became an inter-national expert in putting out dangerous blazes involving oil.
The Texan was summoned to help when the Piper Alpha platform in the North Sea was alight in 1988; enhancing his red-hot reputation as the master of his dangerous craft.
In Beaumont’s case, the emergency call came as oil was being poured — figuratively speaking — all over a raging inferno at the RFU late last year. The union’s annual report, released at the end of November, revealed that chief executive Bill Sweeney had earned a £358,000 bonus on top of his base salary of £742,000, and those figures sparked a furious backlash and revolt.
As outrage and indignation flowed in torrents from the shires towards Twickenham, it was hard to imagine how Sweeney could survive. The fact that he went from a perilous predicament then to emphatically seeing off a no- confidence vote on Thursday is down in large part to the shrewd ploy of sending for Beaumont and his unsurpassed, fire-fighting diplomacy.
What eventually unfolded was a 24-stop nationwide ‘roadshow’ which belatedly altered the view that the RFU hierarchy were determined to remain aloof in their ivory tower. It became a means of harnessing the calming and unifying credentials of the oval-ball Adair.
Bill Beaumont (right) alongside embattled RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney earlier this month
Princess Anne sits with presenter David Coleman at the recording of the 200th episode of A Question of Sport – her team-mates that day included Beaumont (second back right)
Beaumont has a gold-plated track record when it comes to the complex business of mediation and conflict resolution, ever since he drove to Glasgow and settled a row about TV rights over a pie and a pint with the-then Five Nations chairman Allan Hosie in the Drum & Monkey pub. Years later, in 2012, he fulfilled a similar arbitration role in another such dispute over broadcast deals.
He also has a track record of negotiating, appeasing and driving compromise during his years in high office. He served as RFU chairman between 2012 and 2016, then World Rugby chairman from 2016-2024, having narrowly won a close vote against Agustin Pichot in 2020, to earn a second term.
Beaumont’s service to the sport has brought a series of honours; an OBE then a CBE, before he was knighted in 2019. Last year, the Lancastrian was made a GBE (a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire) — the highest achievable rank.
However, just before this storm broke at Twickenham, Sir Bill appeared ready, at the age of 72, to step away from front-line duties at last and go back to enjoying the game from the sidelines — on the Fylde coast and beyond — rather than from the boardroom and the box-seats.
On November 14, Brett Robinson was elected in Dublin to succeed Beaumont as World Rugby chairman and as they posed in blazers and ties for the commemorative, water-side photos, the Englishman wore the look of a man content to hand over the baton.
So much for best-laid plans. All hell broke loose at the RFU less than a fortnight later and soon, they needed a fire-fighter. Enter Beaumont, answering the call without hesitation. When Tom Ilube accepted his fall-guy role by resigning as union chairman, up stepped Beaumont to fill the void and set about tackling the blaze. It was December 20 and he had some job on his hands. The mood was dark and Sweeney was on the brink, or so it seemed.
At the time, the RFU released a statement in which Beaumont said: ‘I’m honoured to take on the role on an interim basis. We now must look forward and I hope I can help to unite and drive forward the game of rugby in England at both an international level and in the community game.’
It was a tall order, but the legendary former second row, national captain and Lions leader was up to it. He has a renowned ability to engage with everyone; those he knows and those he has never met.
Beaumont and Sweeney embarked on a 24-stop nationwide ‘roadshow’ to save the latter’s job
On a flight back from Dublin after the Ireland v England game on February 1, Beaumont happily spoke to several passengers and staff, instigating conversations about the rugby and a Manchester United match that afternoon.
He gladly posed for photos when asked. All those present knew who he was and he handled the scrutiny with aplomb. It was a reminder of his natural people skills and a sign of the sort of innate personal touch which is so useful in times of crisis in the corridors of power. It was easy to see glimpses of the qualities which can be so effective in bringing rival factions together.
That is exactly what Inverdale saw when the former BBC broadcaster, president of Esher RFC and chairman of the National Leagues helped to host and regulate the RFU roadshow events. Having spent too long hidden away at HQ, the scrambling union hierarchy recognised the urgent need to interact with community clubs again.
A delegation of senior officials criss-crossed the country at 24 in-person gatherings — along with another 10 via video link. From the home counties to the Midlands, from the North East to the South West, Essex and East Anglia, hundreds of miles of journeys served to chip away at the rebellion and galvanise support.
For those who answered invites to attend, one visitor stood apart and made all the difference, as they raised a multitude of issues, from governance shortcomings to funding shortfalls and concerns over senior men’s participation trends. ‘It helps to have somebody who is such a respected figure within the game and also outside the game,’ Inverdale tells Mail Sport. ‘It meant that, for everybody who was there, there’s an immediate feeling of ‘Bill Beaumont is on our side’.
‘One big thing that cannot be over-estimated — and I may be telling tales out of school here… I spoke to Bill this morning and asked him what he was doing tomorrow, and he’s watching Fylde 2nds. That is what he does out of choice on a Saturday afternoon.
‘So, you instantly have that connection between the guy holding the microphone and the people who may have gone into the room jaundiced or cynical — or just wanting to ask questions which are upper-most in their minds. A lot of the accusations which have been thrown at members of the board — erroneously in some cases — are about them not having an understanding of the game, but nobody could ever level that accusation at Bill.
‘From the moment he stands up and speaks, everyone feels a sense of reassurance and they think, “Yeah, he understands”. It takes a lot of the heat — if there is a lot of heat — out of the situation. He brings the temperature down very quickly.’
There has been plenty of scrutiny surrounding his job after he received a £1.1m salary last year despite the RFU posting a financial loss of almost £40m
There is the Adair likeness; that ability to quell the flames. Beaumont’s presence and his manner were such telling assets for Sweeney in his fight for survival. The chief executive was certainly feeling the heat until the other Bill came to the rescue, with a status and standing from decades as a recognisable public figure.
‘A lot of his legacy is from A Question of Sport, rather than being to do with rugby and 1980 (Grand Slam) and what have you,’ adds Inverdale. ‘It’s more to do with being on Question of Sport and all those years with Emlyn Hughes.
‘Everybody thinks they know Bill. There is no sense of, “There’s Bill Beaumont, I can’t possibly go up and say hello to him”. It’s diametrically the opposite in a way. People think, “There’s Bill Beaumont, I must go and say hello, even though I’ve never met him in my life before and I’ll probably never meet him again. Nonetheless, I’m going to go and say hello”.
‘Jonathan Davies has exactly the same persona in Wales. You go anywhere in Wales with Jiffy and people just come up to him and speak to him as if they’ve known him for 15 years.
‘I think over 500 clubs were represented at those gathering, which was a pretty decent cross-section of the game. Of those 500 people, probably 470 had never met Bill before, but now, when they are at games, they will all be happily saying at the bar, “I had a chat with Bill Beaumont”. People don’t tend to say that about politicians!’
It wasn’t all sweetness and light on the Bill and Bill roadshow. There were awkward questions, tense exchanges and clashes. The secretary of the referees’ union, Adam White, was barred by RFU president Rob Udwin from attending an event at the Royal Institute of British Architects and he publicly condemned what he claimed was an over-zealous denial of justified protest.
But, having answered the crisis, Beaumont duly extinguished the blaze. When it came to the no-confidence vote, 206 voted for it, but 466 opposed it, which meant a decisive reprieve for Sweeney. He owes a huge debt of gratitude to the man who will be back in familiar territory today, supporting Fylde’s Second XV and surely relishing the prospect of an overdue break from mediating and fire-fighting.
