Council votes against motion of No confidence for Rubgy Club Captain

Union Council saw the motion of no confidence against Imperial College Union Rugby Football Union (ICURFC) Club Captain rejected Tuesday evening.

33 members of council were in attendance. 13 voted for the motion of no confidence to be passed, 15 voted against it and 5 abstained. Those who abstained included Abi de Bruin, the Deputy President (Clubs and Societies) who was on the Governance board that issued the vote of no confidence in the first place. Paul Beaumont, Council Chair, abstained but Tom Wheeler, the Union President, did get to vote on the motion.

The motion was proposed as one of the sanctions set by the Governance Committee a few weeks ago, as punishments for members of the team seen stripping on tube platforms and causing a disruption to the tube service at the end of October.

Many members of the ACC committee, sports teams and other club captains attended the meeting in a show of support to Hobson. They sat through an hour of debate concerning other motions before reaching the paper, submitted by Union President Thomas Wheeler, proposing the motion of no confidence.

The paper was not circulated online, so was not open for any student to see, but detailed how Hobson lied on three counts during the investigation into ICURFC. Wheeler told Council how Hobson lied about how many students were naked on the tube during the incident, if they were fully naked and if there was any alcohol consumed.

In a statement to Council, Hobson said that he deeply regretted what had happened, and outlined how “misunderstandings” between the Union and the club itself did not aid the investigation after the incident. Said Hobson “I just thought the Union is here to deal out punishment, and I now know it is there to help clubs.

“I do this role because I love the rugby club, I’m not doing this for any sort of CV points, and I would hate to stop being the Club Captain.”

When asked as to why he lied, Hobson said he was trying to protect the club, and was wary of how other Rugby clubs such as those at London School Economics (LSE) had been disbanded after incidents in the past. Said Hobson, “I tried to protect my members and the people there at the time [of the incident]. I was doing it with what I thought was my members and club’s best interests at heart.”

These lies were told to the Union, who then relayed them to the British Transport Police (BTP). When the BTP told the Union they had CCTV evidence to the contrary, the lies “made [the Union] look like idiots.” Wheeler also clarified that the Union is still unaware of the identities of the individuals involved.

The four individuals are still in talks with the police and have a college disciplinary hearing this afternoon.

The debate that then followed lasted for over an hour, and involved both members of council and those who had showed to support Hobson, despite only those on Council being able to vote for or against the motion.

There was a lot of discussion about the potential to issue a censure against Hobson instead. A censure involves a formal warning against the behaviour. However, due to the Union Constitution, this takes five full college days so could not be introduced during the council meeting or added to the motion as an amendment.

Wheeler also explained as to why the censure wasn’t added in his paper in the first place, stating that “Writing it down would have made it look like I was going after Tom [Hobson], and I have tried my upmost to remove anything that makes it look like this is a personal attack.”

Debate also covered what effect removing Hobson would have on the functioning of the Rugby club as a whole, and also addressed the wider issues of the remits of volunteers, their roles in the Union and also how the club had already received punishment.

One supporter of Hobson pointed out that there was no other student willing or capable of taking up the role should Hobson be forced to step down. “We can’t think of another man who would step up, and we will definitely be faced with turmoil for the club as a whole in the future.”

Said another supporter of Hobson, “The opinion of the rugby club as to who should run the rugby club is more important than that of anyone else.”

Others discussed how the Athletic Clubs Committee had already voted unanimously to keep Hobson in his position, and how their online petition had amassed a further 600 approved signatures. Despite “grilling” Hobson on what happened during their own meeting, they still decided that he should not be removed from his role.

Although these votes had no power in Council, students pointed out that it showed that ACC was happy to keep Hobson in his position too.

Members of Council were keen to consider what sort of message passing or voting against the motion would send to other clubs and societies. Said one attendee, “A vote of no confidence would send the message that a breach of trust [between the Union and the club captain] cannot occur and would not be tolerated,” but another student was quick to point out that Hobson, as a volunteer, is not paid to fulfil his role and is instead elected by his peers. Another member continued, “The impact of his removal will not be beneficial to the club, and that seems unfair.”

After around an hour of debate, the council was directed to vote using paper ballots to allow them to vote without others knowing how they were voting. When the results were announced, those who had turned up to support Hobson cheered.

Thomas Hobson also spoke to us after the meeting. He told Felix: “I would like to thank everyone for their support throughout this ordeal whether it be signing the petition or turning up on the night, it has made this easy to deal with."

“I am looking forward to working with the union to help improve their relationship with clubs and to try and stop a similar incident from happening again.”

Wheeler also spoke to Felix about the motion. Said Wheeler: “I was recommended to bring this Motion of No Confidence to Council, by the Union’s Governance Committee as it is Council’s wish to make decisions regarding Officer Confidence."

“The discussion that followed was very insightful, fair and constructive, proving that Council is the appropriate body to make decisions concerning Club Officers."

“It was imperative that the representative role that Council has was utilised during this decision making process. The discussions showed that the actions of a few affect a large proportion of the rest of our membership."

“I fully support Council’s decision.”

The Chair of ACC, Oliver Benton, said to Felix: “​The ACC welcomes the decision to not remove Tom Hobson from his position as Club Captain."

“A key point of discussion at Council was the lack of understanding by clubs of the Union's role in these situations."

“Tom has already expressed interest in working with us to ensure that the lessons learnt can be shared with the whole ACC so that everyone is aware of the Union's role in supporting clubs through difficult situations."

“He has also pledged full involvement in ACC's drive to shift sports culture away from excessive alcohol consumption; as he remains in office he will be much more able to effect this change."

"Hopefully we are close to drawing a line under the whole situation so that we can all go back to doing what we love: playing sport.”