We can yet do more to help our clubs be sustainable

THE state of the game at the moment is very worrying. It is a tough time with all the concussion stuff going on which won’t go away anytime soon, and financially, I don’t think people understand or realise how hard Covid has hit the game.

I’m not saying we were flying beforehand but we were sustainable to a point, and it’s not just the two clubs in the press (Worcester and Wasps) at the moment, it is almost every club.

Having said that, it is how you come through it and whether you cut your cloth accordingly, postCovid. When you see some of the signings clubs have made you wouldn’t think there are financial issues, it almost seems like they have rolled their last dice.

Understandably people don’t come into the game to come second and there are egos at play but there has to be some realism about where you stand in the pecking order and there needs to be a balance between sustainability and success.

I just hope Worcester and Wasps sort their issues out. Questions are being asked about whether the Worcester owners bought the club blind or with the right intentions, while as to whether Wasps should have moved to Coventry or not, being a Coventry City supporter it wasn’t my favoured choice. But that is purely my heart speaking rather than anything else.

Whatever the outcome, we clearly need to generate more funds as a game. Take the Premiership, I find it strange that we have minimum standards for seemingly everything except for the quality of the matchday entertainment package.

To encourage more people to come back you need more than the actual game as entertainment. Obviously there will be a cost to that but those costs will be recouped through increased ticket sales and matchday spend.