Scottish Rugby confirms 2022 Club Sustainability Fund awards and reopens scheme for upcoming season

This year’s 12 successful applicants will receive investment towards projects via two funding strands – Capital and Revenue – designed to improve club facilities or allow clubs to employ administrators to support with operational needs.

There are seven clubs who will receive over £300,500 via the Capital fund. The clubs will invest their award into projects to develop facilities and improve the quality, capacity and longevity of rugby participation.

One of this year’s award recipients includes Biggar Rugby Club. The South Lanarkshire based club will be utilising their £50,000 grant to build additional changing rooms, equipment storage and install a new hot water system.

Biggar club member and Treasurer, Nigel Pacey believes that the award will have a profound impact on player experiences at the club, saying:

“With the continued growth in the women and youth pathways at Biggar, we are finding Sunday’s in particular to be a really busy day at the club. Whilst we have the pitch space to accommodate this, we are behind where we need to be in our changing facilities, so the funding from Scottish Rugby will allow us to create two new changing rooms and install new water-tanks to accommodate this influx.

“Without a doubt having more space and enough hot water for players to get cleaned up post-match will enhance the rugby experience for both home players and those traveling to us for their games.”

As part of the new changing facility, the club will also include additional space for match officials and disabled users.

“It is also becoming more frequent that we have female match officials refereeing games at the club, so an additional referee’s changing room will ensure we can be accommodating and inclusive to all genders of match officials, whilst a more accessible space for disabled users ensures we can welcome people of all abilities.”
Nigel Pacey, Biggar RFC

The Revenue strand of the CSF provides funding of up to £10,000 for club sustainability projects which will help to increase club revenue through increasing membership, extending community usage of club facilities or increasing involvement of local business and sponsorship.

More than £46,000 has been awarded to five clubs, including Madras Rugby Club who were awarded the maximum amount of £10,000 towards hiring a Project Manager for the club.

Madras Rugby Club President, Ben Stuart spoke about the benefits that the Project Manger position will have for the club as it continues to navigate a post-covid landscape.

“The Project Manager will support the activities and input of the active committee members and will be the core to managing the detail required to create successful events and activities on and off the fields of play.”

Ben added: “The Club feels strongly that the role will enhance the work of the committee and take up a lot of the heavy lifting to ignite Club members and community engagement post-covid. Through media support and online presence this will broaden the Clubs profile to attract new members and players, increase commercial use of our facilities and bring back the vibrancy the Club enjoyed pre-covid.”

Gav Scott, Director of Rugby Development said: “We are excited to see the impact the Club Sustainability Fund will have at our clubs in the domestic game. There are some fantastic projects receiving investment including Biggar and Madras who are two excellent examples of how our clubs benefit from the funding, enabling them to improve their facilities and really deliver on their community engagement ambitions.”

“I am delighted to confirm that the CSF has been reintroduced for the 2022/23 season with four strands of funding. The new Fast Track fund is now open for clubs to apply to for up to £2,000 in funding and the remaining three stands will open in October.”
Gav Scott, Director of Rugby Development

This season the fund is comprised of four strands: Fast Track, Revenue, Capital and Major Capital Investment.

Fast Track applications are now open (deadline is 31 July 2022) with the remaining three strands going live in October. More information can be found here.

If you have any questions about the CSF, please contact your Rugby Development Regional Manager.

To view confirmation of successful applicants from the 2022 CSF award and the projects their funding will support, click here.