Ellis Genge Reveals What’s Seriously Wrong With Rugby In Incredible Interview

Divide.

England and Leicester prop Ellis Genge has come out and revealed what’s wrong with rugby in a brilliant open and honest interview.

The 23-year-old feels rugby is suffering and will continue to do so until better pathways are opened for players from non-fee paying schools. He says he felt like an outsider coming through the ranks because he wasn’t “white middle-class”.

He also says he has friends who are working on scaffolding sights that are “quicker than Jonny May” and questions whether or nor rugby really is grass-roots.

“All this shit with Raheem Sterling got me thinking,” he told Nik Simon in an incredible interview with the Daily Mail.

“You’ve got one story for a white 18-year-old and another story for a black boy. It’s no different in rugby, you know.”

“It’s something I want to speak about because my whole career I’ve felt like I can’t express my opinion. I feel like, in rugby, people aren’t allowed to be themselves. They’re so false and that stops our sport from growing. It breaks me.”

“When I was 16, 17, 18, I never made any of the age-group teams. I feel that’s because my face didn’t fit. I’m not white middle-class — I’m working class. I don’t want to put it down to race — I don’t think it’s about that — but I’ll put it down to culture. The way people are raised and brought up. There’s that private-school mould in rugby. It’s stopping the game from progressing and it’s painful.”

“I have friends working on scaffolding sites back home who are quicker than Jonny May. That’s where football and those other sports have cracked it. Is rugby really grass-roots? When I was younger, I never felt comfortable sitting in the clubhouse having my chips and sausage because I just felt everyone was looking at me thinking, “Who the f*** is this”?”

You can read Genge’s brilliant interview in full here.

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