The governance structure of English rugby should be altered to distribute authority beyond the Rugby Football Union (RFU), according to Simon Halliday.

Talking at this morning’s (26 November) Rugby Expo 2015 at Twickenham, the European Professional Club Rugby chair called for a “Rugby Committee” to be established to put player and club management at the “front and centre” of the game.

He said that stakeholders who look after players, clubs and other interested bodies do not have enough authority in terms of the way the game is governed, adding that the RFU did not “have enough” of the right people to effectively shape English rugby strategy going forward.

“The Professional Game Board became an RFU-dominated in-built majority when it should have been a Rugby Committee to deal with rugby matters,” said Halliday.

“That group should be empowered to make that happen again. That’s currently not the case, they need to change things structurally and they need to do it now.”

Calling on RFU chief executive Ian Ritchie, who he commended for stabilising English rugby and turning it into “an incredible commercial animal”, Halliday said he should allow the interested parties to develop the game within the “complex environment” of English rugby and help it find its place on the world stage.

“That for me will be his ultimate legacy,” he added.

Halliday said there should be more of an emphasis on the way young players are developed, with a focus on cultivating people as well as players from the age of 16.

“We’re all one injury away from thing being very different,” he said. “If a 21-year-old England wannabe breaks their leg, how do you look after that person? Whose job is it? No one knows.”

The former Bath, Harlequins and England player also said that grassroots rugby needed some “care and attention from a financial standpoint”, and highlighted the amount of money coming into the game as a means to do it.