Full name Martyn Thomas
Born
date unknown
Other Administrator
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Thomas is currently the acting chief executive of the Rugby Football Union and served as chairman of the RFU's management board between April 2005 and July 2011.
Chairman of Notts, Lincs & Derbyshire RFU between 1996 and 2005 and Midland Counties from 1999 to 2005, he was elected to the RFU Council in July 2001. In 2005, he beat Jack Rowell to the position of chairman of the RFU board and two years later he became one of the RFU's two representatives on the International Rugby Board Council and Six Nations Committee.
He was at the forefront of the RFU's successful bid to host the 2015 Rugby World Cup and is chairman of the company charged with delivering the tournament - that will be staged in England.
In 2009, Thomas joined the RFU's 'Image of the Game' task group in the wake of the 'Bloodgate' scandal but was mired in controversy of his own in 2011 revolving around the hiring and firing of former RFU chief executive John Steele.
Steele spent less than a year in the role before losing the confidence of the management board in his efforts to recruit a performance director. He stepped down from the role to be replaced by Thomas on an interim basis. Thomas later stood down from his role as chairman following a review into the affair but will continue in his other roles.
Educated at Mill Hill School, he played rugby and other sports for the Old Millhillians. On completion of his secondary education he trained as a solicitor, being articled in the City of London and attending the College of Law. After private practice he moved to the commercial sector, managing firstly a financial investment group and thereafter a European meat export group.
He coached Market Rasen's first XV and their minis, juniors and colts in the 1980s and '90s before taking up the whistle with the Notts, Lincs and Derbyshire Referee Society. Chairman of Market Rasen & Louth from 1989-1998, he became a Lincolnshire County Union Committee member from 1994-98 and was Chairman of the Notts, Lincs & Derbyshire Referee Society during the same period. Thomas joined the RFU's Competitions Sub Committee and Club Finance Sub Committee in 2002.
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