Bristol Bears stand to be an immediate beneficiary should London Irish tragically go the way of Wasps and Worcester Warriors and collapse.
The loss of a third Premiership rugby club in the space of nine months would be a tragedy for fans and players and a crushing inditement of the unsustainable current model of professional rugby in England which requires generous benefactors like Bristol’s owner Steve Lansdown to repeatedly dig deep into their pockets to keep the lights on. Now London Irish’s owner Mick Crossan has said enough is enough and put the club up for sale, but with reported debts of £30m it is hardly an enticing prospect.
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The Exiles have been given a deadline of next Tuesday by the RFU to prove their viability for next season or join Worcester and Wasps in being removed from the rugby map. Irish have been linked with a takeover by a US consortium ed by Alfred ‘Chip’ Sloan, a former sports agent and California-based lawyer, but the group, reported to include former NBA and NFL players, has yet to provide proof of funds and league bosses are fearing the worst.
Premiership CEO Simon Massie-Taylor said: “This is an incredibly important few days for the club in trying to secure this deal.
“There’s clearly a mountain to climb for the club and a big decision for the owner as to what to do with the legacy of his club.”
But professional sport is a dog-eat-dog environment and should Irish miss the deadline, the Bears are seemingly poised to inherit the Exiles’ Heineken Champions Cup place with Massy-Taylor confirming the English league will contribute eight teams to next season’s premier European competition.
London Irish finished fifth in the table at the conclusion of the 2022/23 season, building nicely on the field thanks to the strength of talent coming through their academy in recent years. Bristol in contrast finished ninth, one place out of the Champions Cup qualifying spots, despite beating Gloucester on the last day of the season.
This week Massy-Taylor confirmed Premiership clubs are in agreement that 10 teams is the optimum number of clubs in the league moving forward and they are exploring the possibility of a franchise model with that many sides. The thinking is ten clubs represent bigger slices of the financial pie brought in from RFU funding and TV deals which will edge them collectively closer to being sustainable without the £300m cash injection over five years from powers predicted by Sale Sharks boss Simon Orange this week.
Bristol are due to play in the European Challenge Cup next season but as it stands it is unclear which sides will make up that competition. The Premiership should provide five clubs to the second-tier competition but if Irish fail to show proof they are financially viable to play the entirety of next season, the league will have just Newcastle Falcons and Gloucester Rugby to offer up.
The Telegraph reported this week that Championship sides Jersey Reds, Ealing Trailfinders and Coventry have applied to organisers EPCR to join the Challenge Cup to fill the void, while no doubt there will also be further discussions about adding clubs from nations currently not involved in the competition.
