Ex-Wales captain Paul Thorburn believes professional rugby is on a cliff edge amid the financial crisis engulfing the English game.
Four-time Premiership champions Wasps appear set to enter administration, barely a week after Worcester suffered the same fate. Wasps owe £2million in unpaid taxes to HMRC and £35million plus interest to bondholders as part of a scheme that financed their move to Coventry.
Meanwhile, Worcester’s players are free to leave after the company which held their contracts was liquidated amid an unpaid tax bill of around £6million.
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Thorburn, tournament director at the 1999 World Cup and later strategic development manager for the Ospreys, believes the warning signs are flashing like never before and said the game’s authorities need to take a lead.
“It’s an understatement to say these are challenging times for rugby,” he told WalesOnline. “The Welsh game’s struggles in the professional age are well-documented, but we thought England would cope better, but maybe we were wrong on that front.
“Scratch the surface and it’s evident that not all of their clubs are attracting massive crowds. Some of them, perhaps most of them, don’t get the support to warrant the salaries their players are getting. So there are problems on that front.
“I can see it’s difficult. French clubs, for instance, are offering inflated salaries to play in France. What that does is put pressure on clubs outside France, because they are trying to protect their domestic games by retaining their players. But the risk is they actually end up harming themselves.
“Now we have these financial problems. Unfortunately, the horse has bolted in many ways. World Rugby, European rugby, Six Nations rugby all have roles to play in the survival of the game, because rugby is walking a fine line.
“I’ve been critical of World Rugby historically over the laws they have made and I’ve been critical of Bill Beaumont as chairman. It’s time he stepped up to the plate and showed leadership in terms of the problems the game faces.
“Although he may turn around and say these are fairly localised problems, the reality is it’s a global problem. It’s not just about England and Wales experiencing challenges. This is a sport problem.
“Without those countries, there is no rugby in a global sense. World Rugby needs to get its head out of the sand and recognise that the game is in dire straits.”
On the remuneration front, players, of course, would argue that careers are short and they deserve to be well-paid for their services in a game which can take a savage toll on those who take part.
Digressing, Thorburn pointed to the legal action being taken by 185 ex-players against the game’s authorities for alleged negligence in failing to protect players from the risks caused by concussion. “It’s another area of concern,” he said. “All these things are coming together to put the game on a cliff edge.
“We can’t be sure of the outcome on that one, but in the professional era the game has become more physical and attritional than it used to be and I’m not sure law changes have helped the injury situation generally". You can read more of his views here on the 'monster' rugby has created.
“I don’t quite get why a team is allowed to send on eight replacements in a match," he continued. “It’s a ludicrous situation because you have huge people coming on fresh around the 60-minute mark and running at others who are tiring.
“If there were not so many replacements, then maybe clubs could afford to operate with smaller squads, which would obviously be less expensive to run. I understand that clubs have to have squads of certain sizes because of injuries and the need for cover. But I still think there’s scope to bring about a position where clubs can operate safely with fewer players on their books.”
As for the quality of rugby, he said: “I know others will have a different opinion, but I don’t think the game is the spectacle it used to be. The law changes haven’t helped.
“For me, lawmakers need to sit down and find ways to open up space on a rugby field — find ways of getting more people to commit to rucks, perhaps, rather than being strung out across the field in a defensive line.”
The business development consultant, who won 37 caps for Wales, has riled officialdom in the past with scathing attacks, but he says potential issues were obvious to anyone who bothered to look. “I don’t take any pride from having warned many years ago of problems ahead, I’m sure others made similar comments,” he said. “In truth, the writing was on the wall not long after the game went professional in 1995.
“It was a decision thrust upon the sport by World Rugby, and while some countries had an obvious structure and platform on which to build a professional game, there were others who clearly weren’t up to speed.
“The southern hemisphere had their natural provincial set-up, whereas in the UK we had our club structure. In Wales, there were 12 clubs in the top tier when the game moved to professionalism. There was never any way we could sustain that number as professional entities. Anyone with foresight should have realised as much. Even nine clubs was too many.
“It just meant that in Wales in those early years of professionalism, we were on the back foot, with too many clubs competing for players and so stimulating a wage war.
“People within the game here should have known it was never going to be economically viable to have that number of professional clubs. Now some in England are struggling as well.
“Of course, I am concerned about the game as it is. If another Gallagher Premiership club hits trouble England could be left with a top tier of 10 clubs. These are worrying times."
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