Former England rugby star Paul Sackey says he will be devastated if the two clubs with whom he made his name disappear.
Sackey won a European Cup and two Premiership titles with Wasps, who went bust in October. Before that, he lifted English rugby’s equivalent of the FA Cup with London Irish, a club at grave risk of suspension from next season’s top flight.
The winger averaged a try every other game for his country and was England’s top try scorer when last the World Cup was played in France. But now he fears the glittering legacy he and his club mates left at Wasps and Irish will be erased.
The Londoner said: “I worry that I’ll speak to kids in years to come and tell them I played for Wasps and London Irish and they will look at me blankly and say, ‘Oh.. who are they?'
“They won’t know that Wasps were the best in Europe for a long while, that Irish won a Powergen Cup and produced many of the best players to lace boots in the English game.
“Honestly, when I think of all that Wasps achieved and then, seemingly overnight, the club ceases to exist. It’s awful.”
The Exiles have a fortnight to provide proof that either their proposed US takeover has been completed or that their current owner can fund the club for next season.
If that guarantee is not in place by May 30 the Brentford-based club will be suspended from the Premiership.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” added Sackey. “Irish and Wasps were the clubs that made me.
“Wasps scouted me at school before I went to Irish and got to work with Brendan Venter, one of the best coaches I ever had.
“We won the cup and then I went back to Wasps and learned from the best in the world in Gats and Shaun (Warren Gatland and Shaun Edwards).
“These are two of the biggest clubs in rugby history and should they both go I won't be at all happy.”
Wasps still hope to resurrect themselves in the second tier, though they currently have no players, coaches or a ground. Irish might yet get their deal over the line and be in a position to build on this season's fifth place finish.
But Sackey said: “Rugby needs a massive overhaul. There has to be structural change, more innovation and creativity. A fresh outlook.
“I feel club rugby as it is is dying. It needs a kiss of life. Formula One has changed up, so too has cricket, English football is the envy of the world.
“We have to come up with a way to make club rugby sustainable otherwise it'll lose its professional arm and go back to being an amateur game.”
