Warning over dire impact of Covid on finances

World Rugby chief executive Brett Gosper admits the coronavirus pandemic continues to have a“devastating” impact on the game’s finances.

The sport’s global governing body is distributing funds from a central £77 million relief fund, the majority of it being given to stricken tier one nations.

World Rugby has reduced costs over a four-year period by 10% to £540m and has benefited from staging the 2019 World Cup in Japan shortly before C ovid -19 struck, while France 2023 is still three years away.

Although optimistic that rugby ’s main revenue generator will avoid any repercussions from the pandemic, Gosper admits the current outlook is bleak.

“It’s been devastating from a revenue point of view,” he said.

“The more reliant you are on ticketing and hospitality revenue, the more devastating it is.

“Hopefully we’ ll be getting some good broadcast revenues, but the rest of the picture is pretty weak.

“We’re operating a little bit like a central bank, advancing monies to unions to see them through this period from a cashflow point of view.

“It ’s the highest revenue unions that are most in trouble and they’ re under huge pressure.

“The majority of the money goes to the top 10 unions because they generate a lot of the money for other unions.

“It’s important that we help them be cashviable for as long as possible.

“Hopefully we can see this through if things get back to normality – whatever that is – halfway through next year.”