England reinstate Tindall

MIKE TINDALL was last night reinstated in England’s elite player squad and had a £25,000 fine reduced to £15,000 after an appeal against the punishment meted out for his off-field World Cup behaviour.

The England and Gloucester centre appealed the original Rugby Football Union punishment which saw him kicked out of the squad and hit with a sizeable fine.

But Tindall, whose appeal was heard by acting RFU chief executive Martyn Thomas, received backing from the Rugby Players’ Association, with many people feeling he had been a scapegoat for England’s World Cup woes in New Zealand.

The RPA had described Tindall’s fine as “unprecedented” and “extraordinary.”

The initial sanction came after RFU elite rugby director Rob Andrew and legal and governance director Karena Vleck took evidence earlier this month about 33-year-old Tindall’s behaviour with a women at Altitude bar in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Thomas said he felt “mitigating factors” did not appear to have been taken into account “to the extent that they might otherwise have been”.