Rugby needs a reset – it can’t go on paying such high wages
IFwales’ rugby union players were being paid on performance in this season’s Six Nations, a whip-round with a daffodil hat would do the trick. After the limp home defeat to Ireland, they offered so little against Scotland last weekend there was a case for a refund for travelling supporters.
Heading into round three,wales sit bottom of the table without a point and with a points differential of minus 52.
Strikes may be back in vogue but it is not, when you look at it, the strongest position from which to threaten to withdraw their labour.
Would anyone notice much difference if they did not turn up against England on Saturday?
Nevertheless, to talk openly about a walk-out shows just how mutinous the players feel.
For Alun Wyn Jones to take on the Mick Lynch union leader role, kicking out the Netflix cameras from Wales’ camp as part of what amounted to a work to rule before running through the squad’s grievances, underlined this.
The sport’s most-capped player is naturally guarded with his words but in manning the barricades not just for thewales squad but for professional players across the regions, it was clear he had been pushed over the edge.
Welsh rugby, so integral to the principality’s soul, seems to be in a perpetual state of dysfunction but the funding row between thewelsh Rugby Union and the regions has brought everything to a head.
It is easy to hammer thewru, which is currently the subject of an investigation into its “toxic culture” after being accused of treating its employees abominably.
But the cold facts are thatwelsh rugby cannot afford what it is paying its players.across the border
England continue to prepare for the match, crossing their fingers it will go ahead.
Their side includes two players, Ollie Lawrence and Jack Willis, who have been forced to move clubs this season after their employers disappeared off the face of the Premiership map after financial implosions.
Wasps have a place in the second-tier Championship but no ground, while Worcester have a ground but no league. English rugby cannot afford what it is paying its players, either.
Thewelsh regions are 80 per cent centrally funded, the privatelyowned English clubs 20 per cent but the conclusions are the same.
There isn’t enough in the pot. Leicester, England’s best-supported club, has just announced it needs an emergency £13million injection from two of its backers to stay afloat.
The Six Nations is fabulous – packed stadiums, huge terrestrial TV audience figures, a commercial juggernaut. But the drop-off commercially to the layers below it is steep.the numbers at club and regional level do not add up.
EVEN the European Cup, an excellent addition to the professional landscape in its early years, seems to have lost its lustre. Rugby union remains – and will always remain – primarily an international game in terms of appeal.
Below that, there are too many pro players being paid too much.
The last available figures show the average wage of a Premiership player in 2020/21 was £171,187. It is a little less in the United Rugby Championship but not by much.
Players deserve to be wellrewarded because of the demands placed upon them.
But the reality is that, saddled by debt and with Covid loans to pay back, the clubs and regions cannot sustain present levels. In the end you can only spend the money you get in. Saturday’s Six Nations match will go ahead in the end – neither the frustrated players nor the Welsh Rugby Union gain from it being cancelled – but rugby’s issues will not just go away. One way or the other, there needs to be a reset. And, rough on them that it is, it will be the players who will have to pay the price.*