“Family business” – Jon Wilkin suggests why Hull FC appointed Richie Myler

It has been almost a week since the surprise appointment of Richie Myler by Hull FC into the new role of Director of Rugby, a hiring that has prompted questions from fans and pundits alike.

The most recent of those to query the decision to hire Myler has come from Sky Sports’ pundit Jon Wilkin with the Hull-born former St Helens skipper having previously called the appointment “weird”.

Wilkin had made those initial comments on Sky Sports News’ The Verdict and he offered clarification last night, explaining: “Let me give a context to why it was weird. I didn’t realise that Richie Myler had an appetite to maybe get involved and to go so quickly into a role like that.

“I’m saying it’s weird from the public to just come out of the blue with somebody who’s so naive to that job role to give him such a big task of turning Hull FC around because that’s what’s needed.”

Myler had outlined his credentials as being 18 years in a professional rugby league environment, also suggesting that his time at Leeds Rhinos saw him learn plenty from Gary Hetherington.

Has Richie Myler had the Hull FC job ‘bought’ for him?

Hull FC chairman Adam Pearson had previously confirmed that the club were speaking with investors and that money could be input into the club soon and speculation has begun that said investor is Andrew Thirkill.

Thirkill is the Leeds Rhinos President but he’s been speculated to be the man set to invest in Hull FC with the Yorkshire-based businessman worth close to £200 million per estimates. He is also the father of Richie Myler’s partner, something that Brian Carney hinted at when speaking on Sky Sports.

The Irishman said: “There’s speculation that there are wealthy investors closely linked to Richie Myler, maybe potentially going to invest in Hull FC. If that is the case, does that make the decision to appoint him as director of Rugby more understandable? If that is true.”

To that, Jon Wilkin responded: “Yeah, I think it paints the picture in colour a little bit more when you describe the family investment that’s maybe coming and suggest that Richie will get a job on the back of that for sure.

“Family businesses work like that. There’s many businesses around the world, hiring people or recruiting people who they trust and who are very loyal to them and that happens to be family sometimes. That’s the way the world works, isn’t it?”

Carney even compared it to the practice of ‘buying a seat’ in Formula One, something that sees very wealthy investors pump money into the team on the provision that they can select a specific driver, typically their son as has been the case previously with drivers such as Lance Stroll and Nikita Mazepin.

The Sky Sports host reasoned: Well, you have paid drivers, for example, in Formula One, where if you bring investment into the Formula One team, they’ll give you a go at driving the car.”

It remains to be seen if investment will come to Hull FC and if it does whether it be from Thirkill, but if that hypothesis by Carney is true then it would indeed “paint the picture in colour” as Wilkin stated.