English rugby union’s top-flight Premiership now has a new chief operating officer (COO), with Charlotte Samuelson having been unveiled in that position earlier today.
She joins from the sport's global governing body, World Rugby, where she had served as COO since the start of 2022. In that time, she served on the boards of the Women's Rugby World Cup 2025 (England) and the Men's Rugby World Cup 2027 (Australia).
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Indeed, when she was hired, she became World Rugby's first COO.
Samuelson will be responsible for finance, HR, and business transformation at Prem Rugby, as well as a newly-formed club office.
Regarding that latter element of her role, she will work with the 10 Premiership clubs, English rugby union's governing RFU, the second-tier Championship, and the Professional Women's Rugby league.
Late February saw the RFU unveil a major revamp of its club pyramid, separating the top-flight Prem Rugby from the lower tiers.
This move effectively eliminates promotion and relegation between the Prem and the second-tier Champ Rugby, establishing the top-flight as a standalone 10-team division, with the goal of adding as many as two expansion teams by the 2029-30 campaign.
Samuelson, meanwhile, has previously held roles at organizations including Close Brothers (her employer before World Rugby), Vanquis Bank, Barclays Bank, Grant Thornton, EY, and the BBC (the UK's public-service broadcaster).
Simon Massie-Taylor, Prem Rugby's chief executive, commented: "Charlotte is an outstanding operator with a track record of delivering at the highest level in sport, so I am delighted to welcome her to the team.
“Her experience leading complex organisations at multiple levels, combined with her deep understanding of the rugby landscape, makes her the ideal person to lead our newly-formed club office with our partners throughout the game.”
Samuelson added: “I am thrilled to be joining Prem Rugby at such an exciting time for the league and the game as a whole.
“Driving the Prem Rugby expansion plans through the club office is something that I can’t wait to get started on.”
Elsewhere in English top-tier rugby union, the Prem Rugby playoff games will be played at neutral venues from 2029-30, it has been announced.
The top two teams in the league table each season have secured home advantage in the playoff semi-finals (four teams take part in the playoffs overall), playing at their own stadiums, since 2005, but that will change in three years.
It has been reported that the league is looking to play both semis in one city on consecutive days, and that Liverpool and Brighton are being seen as options.
Both Prem Rugby playoff semi-finals this season took place at venues – in Northampton and in Bath – with a capacity of around 15,000. In France, meanwhile, the equivalent games in the Top14 competition were staged at the Stade Velodrome in Marseille, where the capacity is up at 67,000.
Speaking at a Prem Rugby event, Massie-Taylor said: "This is about the long term. In the long term, it will be more valuable if you are playing [the playoff fixtures] in bigger stadia. They become main events, and you have a longer time to sell the games."
Clubs that do play these games at their home venues currently make relatively significant amounts of money from doing so, a factor that Prem Rugby will have to assess before making a final decision on how the funds from games at neutral venues should be distributed.
