It’s folly to block investment ... but we do need Euro wage cap
Gloucester owner Martin St Quinton tells NEALE HARVEY why he believes Premiership Rugby’s rejection of Mohed Altrad’s millions was short-sighted and how a pan-European salary cap could transform the financially stricken Northern Hemisphere rugby. How angry are you still over the Premiership’s refusal to allow Montpellier owner Altrad to buy a 45 per cent stake in Gloucester? I’m disappointed because I think it would have been good for English rugby and Gloucester. Mohed wanted to invest in English rugby and the club ticked all his boxes in that he wanted a club with history and tradition that owned its own ground and had a structure where he could be a significant partner. He has big businesses in this country that employ 5,000 people and turn over £500m so he was ready to rebrand them as ‘Altrad’, take a stake in the club, name the stadium and promote his brand. We spent a lot of time lobbying the other clubs to get support for him to take a 45 per cent stake, but it was rejected. Premiership Rugby agreed he could take a 20 per cent stake – up from their original ten – but Altrad said No. Whether he felt snubbed or pushed out, I don’t know, but we’ve moved on. It seems bizarre when Premiership clubs collectively lose millions, that they reject inward investment from a man worth £1.5bn? It’s a big shame. Bernard Laporte, who heads French rugby, said once that if a billionaire comes along and says he wants to invest in your sport, then you welcome him with open arms and work out how to accommodate him. I’m not bitter about it but English rugby has missed a fantastic opportunity that could have led to far wider investment in the game. How has all this affected your ownership of the club? It hasn’t. I only acquired the club outright in January 2016 after previously holding 40 per cent and I went on record to say I was actively looking for co-investors to hold 10-15 per cent each, where three or four of us could form a strong board of like-minded people to run the club and move it forward. That remains the case. Altrad slightly hijacked those discussions because he only wanted a joint partnership and 45 per cent, but now I’m actually talking to a couple of investors who love their rugby and are keen on a minority stake. There’s no timescale and I’m not pushing anybody to invest, I just want the right partners who understand the financial model and are in for the long term. What is the biggest challenge for Premiership clubs right now? Spiralling losses!! That’s principally down to increased wage bills. Collectively, the Premiership clubs lose between £20m and £30m a year, which is madness, so we’ve got to control wages. The salary cap was set far too high two years ago and we need to be very disciplined in how we control that so we can move closer to breaking even. There will always be two or three clubs owned by billionaires who might be happy to sustain major losses, but billionaires pass away or get bored and you’re then left with a completely unviable club. After many years in profit, Gloucester lost money last year and will do so again this year. The wage bill for our playing department has risen to £8.5m so it’s very important that we manage costs, maximise revenue and, collectively, ensure that the majority of clubs remain financially sustainable. Selling naming rights to Kingsholm would drive some Gloucester fans nuts, but is that a risk you’re willing to take? We would never take Kingsholm out of the stadium name and I’d imagine most people would always refer to it as that anyway, but we would consider the right naming rights partner. If the investment was right I’m sure the fans would be totally supportive because what they want is a successful team that plays entertaining rugby, fills the ground and wins things. Bath attracted 65,000 for a game against Leicester at Twickenham in April. Would you consider a ‘Big Game’ away from Kingsholm? We’re working on taking one game a year to a big stadium. Geographically, Gloucester isn’t ideally situated but we could look at Twickenham, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff or Villa Park in Birmingham. I’d love to do that and while there will be some Gloucester fans who say “over my dead body”, there are twice as many asking why we aren’t having a big day out and generating more revenue. Kingsholm’s pitch has been a problem, would you ever consider a 4G surface similar to the ones working very well elsewhere? I’m a strong supporter of those kind of developments and we’ve got a working group, including fans, looking at exactly what we should be doing with our pitch. There are obvious yearround revenue generating opportunities and I’m hopeful that by the end of this coming season we’ll be in a position to totally revamp our pitch. On the playing side, as Gloucester’s owner you surely cannot be happy with finishing ninth, eighth and ninth in successive Premier- ship seasons since David Humphreys became director of rugby in 2014? No. And David Humphreys isn’t happy either! We need to improve and that’s why we’ve got a new head coach in Johan Ackermann, who was with us a couple of weeks ago. Johan’s understandably reluctant to set any targets at this stage but as far as I’m concerned, if we don’t finish in the top six it would be a failure. Did you consider the nuclear option of dispensing with David Humphreys? I don’t want to be drawn into offering resounding votes of confidence because you know where that goes, but David has worked extremely hard and is very passionate about Gloucester. He’s obviously determined to make a success of it and in Johan he’s brought in an absolutely first class head coach who comes across as a hugely inspirational figure. When I took over last year I told David it was a five-year plan and we wouldn’t change things overnight. We’d had a number of years with little or no investment and the task was to rebuild the club to where it should be at the top tier of Premiership and European rugby. That remains our ambition. On a wider issue, how happy are you with the governance of Premiership Rugby? I’m very optimistic about Premiership Rugby but only if we can work together as a board of club directors pulling in the same direction. If we act as 14 individuals (including Bristol and Yorkshire Carnegie) we’ll get nowhere. I think we can achieve more. There are constant whispers a cabal of powerful clubs, led by Bath’s Bruce Craig, call the shots while the views of other, less well-heeled clubs have too often been sidelined on issues like the salary cap. True or false? That might have been true a year or two ago but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Look, Bruce is on the executive committee and works very hard, putting in a huge amount of
“Collectively, the Premiership loses between £30m and £40m a year which is madness. We must control wages”
time on behalf of the clubs, who I think are broadly united. Inevitably there are disagreements, as you’d expect within any group of competing clubs, but as a board we’re more united than we’ve ever been and Premiership Rugby is in a good place. What do you see as the key objectives Premiership Rugby has to address right now? Financial stability is absolutely fundamental and the season structure is another big item we’ve got to nail down. We’re strengthening our A League and hope to build that up over the next two or three years, while there’s other ‘big picture’ stuff like TV rights to negotiate. But I really think salary cap issues are the key and we need to work with Europe on that because the ultimate goal, in my opinion, is to have a European salary cap so we all are on a level playing field. There have been huge strides domestically on the salary cap and whilst it is probably too high, at least it is now under control and vigorously policed, but we need to go further. Can you honestly see a scenario where cash-rich French Top 14 clubs like Toulon fall into line with the Premiership and Celtic League over a common salary cap? There needs to be a willingness on behalf of the French clubs to go with it and that will be challenging, but I think it’s achievable. A lot of French clubs are incurring completely unsustainable losses which they won’t put up with forever. We’ve seen clubs like Biarritz, Perpignan and Bourgoin relegated in France amid huge financial problems and last season we saw the Stade Francais/Racing 92 merger threat, which was a massive wake-up call to the Top 14. The French have the same goals as us: to get their financial house in order, and a pan-European salary cap would help them achieve that. What do you make of South African teams in the PRO12? I can understand why South African teams would want to do it and I think it will freshen up the PRO12 and give it an added international element. Logistically, it’s going to be pretty challenging for those teams to play an entire season in a different hemisphere but it could make the league stronger, which in turn might benefit our European competitions. Premiership Rugby has moved into the American market. Do you ever foresee a team from the United States competing in the English leagues? Having a team from the States in the Premiership is a long way off but I could certainly see a team playing in our third competition (currently the Anglo-Welsh Cup) in the not too distant future. Exploring the American market is exactly what we should be doing because we need to build the brand globally. We should be working with Japan ahead of the 2019 World Cup as well because there’s clearly a big appetite for the game there. I can’t see us taking a Premiership game to Japan or Asia before 2019 but after that, who knows? Champions Cup organisers EPCR have so far failed to deliver on their objective of having a stable of five or six main sponsors, with only Heineken and Turkish Airlines on board. Does that need a rethink? I think it would be great if the tournament just had a single headline sponsor again. When it was the Heineken Cup everyone knew what it was and it was a great piece of brand building for them, so that’s what we should go back to. EPCR have had to build themselves up from nothing in three years and we’ve got three great tournaments now, with bigger TV numbers and more fans watching, but we need to address that issue of sponsorship because it’s the one area that’s been really disappointing. You mentioned season structure earlier and Premiership Rugby recently courted controversy by suggesting a ten or 11-month campaign. Surely that’s a non-starter? Far from it. The key issue is player welfare and what Premiership Rugby are trying to promote is not one long season, but a season with three different breaks in it – one in November, one during the Six Nations and another in July/August. We’re not trying to extend the season but want to make it more understandable for fans whilst making the narrative work a lot better for players than it currently does. We want to reduce the number of overlaps between Premiership games and internationals and some quite big decisions will be made. But those are decisions that will last for three or four World Cups and will be made with player welfare at the forefront. Premiership clubs have recently come across as anti-British & Irish Lions. Where do you stand on this thorny issue as Gloucester’s owner? Maybe the communications got frayed at the edges a bit, but I love the British & Irish Lions and I’ll certainly be in South Africa supporting them four years from now. I think the Lions are fantastic but tours need to be designed around the modern game; they need to be shorter and there need to be fewer midweek games because it’s just not fair on the players. Boys from Saracens played in semi-finals and finals pretty much up to getting on the plane to New Zealand and some will have played 34-35 games last season, which simply cannot be right so people have to get their heads together. Do the Premiership clubs want to kill the Lions? Of course not, we want them to be fantastically successful. It’s the ultimate accolade for players to wear that jersey but the whole thing needs re-planning. Back to Gloucester finally, Jonny May’s been your sole senior England representative for some time now. How important is it for the club to increase its Red Rose quota? It’s a huge objective of ours. We have fantastic fans who have been very patient and they deserve a good Gloucester side, which in turn will lead to greater international recognition. We are totally committed to the England set-up and what the RFU are doing EQP-wise and we want to get as many Gloucester players into that setup as possible. Jonny May’s been flying the flag in the senior squad and we had five lads playing in the U20s World Cup final a few weeks ago, three of whom were in the front row. We’ve put a lot of money into our academy and there are a number of players who’ll be knocking on the door if we can have a successful season.