The future of the professional game in Wales remains very much up in the air and clouded in uncertainty.
With just a month to go until the start of the new season, there is still an impasse over WRU payments to the regions, with the amount coming from the Union falling some way short of what the regions maintain they need to cover costs. Talks continue over a future funding package.
The governance of the sport in Wales also remains a major issue, among repeated calls for a separation of the administration of the amateur and professional game. That has been thrown into even sharper focus by top businessman Andrew Williams leaving the Cardiff board, saying there needs to be “major changes to way the professional game in Wales is run”. His exit follows that of another FTSE 100 CEO Amanda Blanc, who quit as Professional Rugby Board chair last November. She later said she had not been listened to, amid the need for governance modernisation.
All of this comes against the backdrop of the Oakwell Report into the financial health of Welsh rugby, which suggested various options. The one which inevitably grabbed the headlines and provoked much controversy was axing one of the four regions.
So what do the players make of it all? We have spoken to two Welsh rugby players anonymously to enable them to speak openly and give their honest opinions on the situation. This is what they had to say.
Player No 1
“It’s ridiculous. Every year it seems to be a different way of blaming each other for their poor management.
“The PRB are supposed to be governed by the PRA which has a formula which should calculate the WRU funding automatically. The elite 38 is picked in January which should immediately allocate the funding split to the regions, with cash flow and income being forecast based on match revenue etc, but that should be easy enough given the historical data they’d have.
“While it (the current situation) obviously makes it very difficult to plan squads for the regions, what it also does is allows the regions to string along players that are out of contract while they look for alternatives by using the excuse that they’re still waiting on funding to be confirmed.
“I’m glad that more is being made of the amateur management of the WRU. To have a business that turns over £90m-plus chaired by a school teacher (I’m sure he’s a lovely bloke and means well) genuinely blows my mind. How anyone can’t see that the professional game needs to be separated from the community game is beyond me.
“If losing people like Amanda Blanc and Andrew Williams, for that exact reason, doesn’t tell you enough about the issues, then nothing will. There’s too many people involved in decision making that no doubt love and care about Welsh rugby, however they are so outdated in their ideas and opinions that it’s harmful to the progression of the professional game
“So much effort is put into making the rugby aspect professional in terms of players and data analytics and sports science, but amateur governance is just deemed acceptable.”
Player No 2
“If I’m honest with you, most of the time we find out what’s going on through Twitter or WalesOnline. So we have a situation where players find stuff out at the same time as the wider public. That’s not great in itself.
“We are not really clued up any more on this than anyone else, which is a bit unsettling, especially for boys who have signed long-term deals because these deals can effectively be just torn up. Then again, we’ve been in this situation God knows how many times before, so it’s almost a case of us just getting on with it and hoping and praying people come up with something in these talks.
“I’m sure there’s a way through. The WRU have plenty of potential income streams available to them with the stadium and everything else. It’s just how they go about backing the professional game and how they and the regions build a better partnership. That seems to be the issue, that there’s not a very good partnership between them.
“It is unsettling when you read it all, and particularly when you’re reading it on social media and other websites. It makes you delve in a bit deeper then and you see articles of things not being sorted.
“It makes you question whether we are being told the truth and exactly what’s been going on. We just don’t know, to be honest. We are being assured everything’s OK, but we can only hope that’s the truth.
“I’ve learned to live with it. We are fortunate enough to play rugby for a living. The whole situation isn’t ideal, because no one wants to see their employers under pressure.
“Of course it makes it harder for us to compete. It is frustrating because we all want to be not just playing the best teams but competing seriously with them. We want to be up there with the Irish sides, who have been turning out good results for years. But the way things are makes it difficult. When you hear the financial situation you can understand why it is hard for us to compete. It’s common sense, really.
“It seems there’s no imminent danger of a region being done away with. The question is whether the money is there for us to properly challenge. There’s talk of the funding model being changed, which could mean one or maybe two teams having even less money than they have now, but then some people wouldn’t want that. It’s a messy situation and one I wouldn’t personally like to deal with.
“It’s frustrating that we haven’t got the budgets that other clubs in our league and around the UK have been operating with, but, as players, we can’t change it. All we can do is front up and put our best foot forward.
“It isn’t easy. If the money’s not there, then the squads don’t have the depth and so when the international blocks come around it’s much harder for every professional team in Wales. We just have to hope they come up with a solution that allows us to move forward.”
Read more:
Nigel Owens names the five best stadiums in the world he's refereed in
What became of the 42 rugby players officially named the most promising in Wales
