Welsh football bosses snub awards ceremony
WELSH football bosses snubbed the Wales Sports Awards because of their anger over a BBC story regarding player bonus payments for Euro 2016, we can reveal.
Rugby star Dan Biggar was chosen as BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year ahead of Real Madrid star Gareth Bale at the lavish ceremony in Cardiff on Monday night following a public vote.
But, while the FA of Wales will have raised eyebrows at that Biggar decision, we have been told their anger and decision not to send any representatives to the event stemmed from a BBC Wales story about a player bonus row.
Manager Chris Coleman won the elite coach award ahead of Warren Gatland, while his France-bound side were named as the team of the year after qualifying for the Euro 2016 finals.
However, it was left to former Wales players and BBC pundits John Hartson and Iwan Roberts to accept the two awards on behalf of Coleman and his team.
Coleman had also been due to help conduct the FA Cup third round draw, which was held just before the awards evening started. The draw was instead conducted by Hartson and England Women’s team manager Mark Sampson, who comes from Cardiff.
The FAW have declined to comment on their decision to pull out of the event.
However, a BBC Wales spokeswoman confirmed: “Unfortunately the FAW decided not to attend last night’s event.”
At the time of going to press, the FAW had yet to recognise the awards on their official website. They did, though, retweet the Coleman and team award announcements on Monday evening, albeit from the Sport Wales rather than BBC Wales twitter account.
A BBC report on Saturday claimed the Welsh players and FAW bosses are in talks to resolve a dispute over bonus payments received for qualifying for Euro 2016.
The reports suggest the FAW offered the Wales players a shared sevenfigure bonus if they qualified, but once that was achieved the sum available was actually lower.
It is said Wales’ committee of senior players, which includes captain Ashley Williams, superstar pair Bale and Aaron Ramsey and defender Chris Gunter, have been in talks with the FAW to try to thrash out things since qualification was secured in October.
The FAW have insisted there was no dispute, although the BBC Wales report does point out the players were said to be unhappy to be offered a sum lower than the one which was made initially.
The likes of Bale, Ramsey and Williams are eager for some of Wales’ other players, who perform at a lower level, to be given a fair amount of any bonus payment the squad receive as a whole.
Biggar’s award as Sports Personality of the Year caused a social networking storm, with many up in arms that he was chosen ahead of Bale.
Biggar had a good World Cup, but Bale’s goals drove Wales to their historic Euro qualification, the first time the team have reached a major finals since 1958.