Sweeney additionally denied hypothesis that he was planning to experience out the furore within the hope of stepping down within the wake of a profitable Ladies’s Rugby World Cup later this 12 months.
The event is being hosted in England, has already introduced in file ticket gross sales, and the Purple Roses are sizzling favourites to win the World Cup for the primary time since 2014.
“I noticed one thing some time again saying I’ve some particular bonus linked to a ladies’s World Cup win – that isn’t the case, that isn’t true,” Sweeney mentioned.
“If I used to be in a thoughts to step down, I’d have completed it now and I would not wait till after a ladies’s World Cup.
“I nonetheless have some unfinished enterprise right here till the tip of 2027. [England men’s head coach] Steve Borthwick is a good coach and now we have an incredible squad of males’s gamers in addition to ladies’s.
“There’s a buzz and an excellent ambiance across the place and I wish to see that by means of.”
Sweeney has mentioned that, opposite to criticisms of his time in cost, he’s pleased with the RFU’s funds within the wake of the Covid pandemic.
The chief govt mentioned file losses previously monetary 12 months have been all the way down to the four-year cycle across the males’s Rugby World Cup, wherein event years add further bills whereas wiping money-spinning autumn internationals off the fixture record, and a steep rise in utility and enterprise prices.
He additionally defended his personal pay, which was made up of £742,000 and a bonus of £358,000 final 12 months.
Sweeney mentioned that, whereas he had unsuccessfully explored the opportunity of deferring his bonus fee, it was the results of a scheme supposed to retain senior leaders by means of the pandemic and benchmark their efficiency towards particular objectives.
“If you end up the recipient of one thing like an LTIP [long-term incentive plan], you do not request it, you do not design it, you do not set the standards for its fee,” he mentioned.
“The fee was towards very clear standards of which 77% have been hit, so a part of me says that was put in place to ship one thing to a stage which we delivered.
“I do not really feel we have to apologise for that scheme.”
Sweeney and different RFU officers are embarking on a tour of grassroots golf equipment over the following few months to place ahead their case earlier than a particular basic assembly on his future.
Rob Sigley, the founding father of the Neighborhood Golf equipment Union, believes it’s already too late for Sweeney to win over many within the sport who really feel that an excessive amount of cash has been centered on the elite sport.
“We now have overtly known as for his head and for him to resign,” mentioned Sigley of Sweeney.
“He sits there on the prime and is a part of these decision-making processes and he is accountable for it.”