Rugby Club launches petition to support Club Captain facing vote of no confidence

ICURFC have launched an online petition that has already amassed 500 signatures at the time of press. The petition, to show support for the Club Captain, Thomas Hobson, who currently at risk of losing his position, was launched yesterday and has been signed by students and clubs and societies as a whole.

The petition follows Imperial College Union announcing that a motion of No Confidence will be held against Hobson at Union Council next Tuesday (9th December). If the vote of no confidence is passed, he will be relinquished of his role of Club Captain, and an election will have to take place to find his replacement.

This follows the incidents Felix reported on in November when rugby players were seen stripping on tube platforms after returning from a match on the 29th October. The disruption caused by the players resulted in a district line tube service being suspended. Passengers were told to disembark from the train at Ravenscourt Park station after being told that there was a “signal failure".

The individual players involved are now under investigation by the British Transport Police, who have footage of them drinking from bottles of wine on the tube and being completely naked on several tube station platforms.

The motion of No Confidence will be presented to the members of Union Council, and only those that hold a seat on Council will be able to vote for or against it. It is being brought against Hobson as he allegedly lied during the investigation into what exactly happened on the tube. The motion of No Confidence was one of the sanctions decided upon by the Governance Committee of the Union, which includes several members of the Trustee board.

The other sanctions included a club-wide two-week suspension for ICURFC, a suspension from the club for those on the match sheet of the day of the incident until the end of the year, and for those on the match sheet to also undertake community service.

The Athletics Clubs Committee (ACC) held a meeting last week, where the members of committee present unanimously voted to support Hobson, despite the reasons behind calling for the vote of no confidence in the first place. This will also be presented to Council at the meeting.

In an email to Presidents, Club Captains and Club Chairs that are overseen by the ACC, Oliver Benton, ACC Chair, details how the members of the committee voted to “support [Hobson] through this vote of no confidence” alongside the distribution of the petition, which is garnering support from a diverse range students including those not involved with ACC. Many other clubs have also distributed the petition to their respective mailing lists.

The email also lists how the ACC believes that “[Hobson] acted with the best interests of his Club members at heart.” The email also notes that the team has “already been punished by the Union as a club and as a team".

It has also been suggested that many sports teams will be showing up at the Council meeting in a show of solidarity for Hobson, although they will not be able to vote on the motion.

Tom Wheeler, Imperial College Union President, said in regards to the petition: “The reason for [the motion of no confidence] is that the Club Captain lied repeatedly to both myself (as part of the investigation that I was carrying out on behalf of the Governance Committee) and the College Tutors. These mistruths were only brought to light when the British Transport Police corrected us (with the backing of witness statements and CCTV footage)."

"The fact that this dishonesty is not given as the reason for the motion of no confidence in the online ICURFC Petition indicates that the only reason for the petition is the belief that the Club Captain was acting in the best interests of the Club and its members, however, by acting in a dishonest manner the Club Captain achieved the opposite.”

The petition can be found here: http://icurfc.co.uk/petition