Will Greenwood: Wasps, Worcester crisis 'enormously worrying', calls for Premiership Rugby and RFU to find connected solution

Will Greenwood has implored Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Football Union to come together and find "a connected solution" for the future of English rugby following the financial crises experienced by Worcester and Wasps.

Worcester Warriors had their relegation to the Championship confirmed by the RFU, a day after the company holding player contracts went into liquidation. The team have been suspended for the rest of the Gallagher Premiership season.

WRFC Players Ltd was liquidated in the High Court and the winding-up petition concerned an unpaid tax bill of approximately £6m.

Administrators Begbies Traynor are still seeking a buyer for WRFC Trading Ltd and are said to be "confident" they will have more than one indicative offer.

On Wednesday, Wasps announced they are set to go into administration. They withdrew from their Gallagher Premiership match against Exeter Chiefs and have since been suspended from the competition.

Wasps will need to reapply for the suspension to be lifted, which will only happen if they are able to demonstrate the means and commitment to pay rugby creditors.

The Coventry-based club have been pushed to the brink of financial ruin by a debt pile that includes an unpaid tax bill owed to HM Revenue & Customs. Wasps also face having to repay a £35m bond which had helped finance the club's relocation to Coventry in 2014.

Greenwood joined Sky Sports News to discuss the position English professional club rugby finds itself in and started by sharing how concerning he finds the whole situation.

"It's enormously worrying," he said. "First of all, my sympathies get extended to the players, the staff, the backroom staff and the whole communities behind Worcester and Wasps whose livelihoods are on the line and are finding themselves looking for work elsewhere, at a time when houses are full within other Premiership clubs.

"Where are Wasps in the pantheon of sides? I don't necessarily want to separate them from Worcester, they must be looked at as a pair when we talk about the long-term implications of rugby - but Wasps are your Manchester United.

"For the late '90s, early 2000s, two Heineken Cups, four Premiership titles. What a team - some of the players that went through there, Alex King, Josh Lewsey, Josh Worsley, Lawrence Dallaglio, Fraser Waters, the names just roll off the tongue - absolute Jedis of rugby.

"Professional rugby has been going for 26 years and in that time, we have seen Orrell, London Scottish, London Welsh, Richmond, clubs having a go, dabbling with professionalism and coming unstuck.

"We thought some of the bigger clubs would be immune from that. This isn't a Covid thing - Covid clearly was a huge factor towards it, but these clubs have been struggling to survive long before that."

Have the alarm bells been ringing for some time?

"Yes. Now it's about viability and visibility - let's work out who is viable and hope there is no one else in the same boat.

"The ins can't get close to matching the outs. The irony is that the rugby on the pitch is amazing. We should have hundreds of thousands of people watching it because it's that good, but the numbers don't stack up.

"The wage bill and salary cap is too high and with it needs to be joint governance and independent auditors. The French do it in terms of Pro D2 and Top 14, so there's real independent oversight of clubs - if clubs look like they are in hot water with overspending compared to what they are bringing in, they can be warned and told to cut their cloth.

"In the race to be the best, win European Cups, compete at the highest level, clubs [in England] have leveraged and taken on debt. Eventually debt needs to be paid back and when debt becomes really expensive people come calling on your door for it."

Does Wasps not being able to fulfil their fixture against Exeter Chiefs show the depth of trouble they're in?

"Yes, hugely so. You then think that it's not just Wasps and Worcester. Exeter will now lose gate money and Gloucester missed out on their Worcester game last week.

"George Skivington said they would be severely financially hamstrung by missing that home game. The Shed at Kingsholm gets 14,000 people, they're all buying, having beers and chips and buying a shirt, so all of that money [won't be there].

"So, it's not only the downsides of these clubs going into administration, if you've done all of your numbers on the year having 12/13 home games… let's make up a number and say you're making £300,000 each home game, so you are now missing £600,000. I think that then snowballs.

"I think PRL (Premiership Rugby Limited) will be asking, close to demanding, clubs… we need to look under the bonnet. We need to see how we can help. The RFU need to get on board and involved.

"The English Championship, which is our second division, it's run by the RFU, the Premiership is run by Premiership Rugby - two different governing bodies - it's not aligned.

"If anything is going to get these guys into a room, which I think they will do shortly and I think an announcement without necessarily predicting the future, which only tends to make a fool out of people.

"I think the RFU and PRL will be getting together and coming up with some sort of plan that hopefully makes sure that Wasps are the last one we hear about."

Will Wasps be the last Premiership club to suffer this financial fate?

"I'd like to think so.

"I remember Dave Lewis the CEO of Tesco who made their incredible turnaround saying you can't communicate your way out of a situation you've behaved yourself into.

"I love the communication but now the clubs have to deafen us with their actions to make sure they're all looking at dotting every i and crossing every t financially, really looking after their expenses and wage bills to make sure it can stake up long-term if we weren't able to get any more investment."

How do Wasps go about finding a new owner?

"I'm not a professional liquidator or administrator, I believe but once you go into administration where potentially then you could write off the creditors and bring it back into existence.

"Unfortunately, with that, the second you go into administration you are relegated [from the Premiership] therefore who wants to then get involved with a club that's relegated? So, there's a lot of nuance.

"We could really go into the depths here, the P-shares that are owned by each of the clubs that give them ownership - they own the Premiership themselves - are probably worth about £10m. If you go into administration, the other clubs get to vote on it and can remove your P-shares from you, you get the opportunity to buy them back.

"If it's a poker table, that's £10m being thrown in by Worcester and Wasps and the other clubs who own the P-shares, think 'do we save it for them later or crikey we're in trouble, sorry Worcester and Wasps we'll cut the rope, divide up those P-shares amongst ourselves'.

"There's all sorts going on in the background. I just hope they're getting into a room as often as possible and finding a way forward, understanding that what might benefit a couple of clubs in the short term by letting other clubs go out to dry would not be good for the game as a whole."

How do you go about making top-flight rugby more sustainable in the future?

"The club versus country row is something we've probably debated for a long time.

"The reality is that Premiership Rugby and England Rugby, with their respective CEOs Simon Massie-Taylor and Bill Sweeney, need to get their teams together and Premiership Rugby needs to bring their clubs together and find a connected solution to this disparate landscape that you currently see in rugby.

"They need to find a way to connect the Championship with the Premiership."

Can Premiership Rugby and the RFU work together?

"I do believe the individuals in question that I mentioned - Simon Massie-Taylor and Bill Sweeney - are people of growth mindset and who are prepared to understand there's nuance, that it's not binary and in a strange way, discuss the conversation. Understand what has been going on, why haven't we found a solution?

"I think when you get a variety of different perspectives on the same rather difficult mountain to climb it tends to snap into focus. I think at the moment, from two sides there's just been one view that they've stuck to and not been able to see the other side.

"If anything is going to force them to dance and debate this issue rather than draw red lines and have a battle then this is it."

RFU and Premiership Rugby joint-statement

A joint-statement from the Premiership Rugby and the RFU was released expressing the two entities sadness at the current situation and highlighting they are working together regarding the future of the club game in England.

"Following yesterday's announcement that Wasps are likely to enter administration in the coming days, Premiership Rugby and the RFU will continue to work with the club and, once appointed, the administrator to support ongoing efforts to secure a long-term future for the club," the statement said.

"The financial difficulties at Wasps, coming on top of the administration of Worcester Warriors, have further highlighted the need for rugby's stakeholders to address the broader challenges facing the professional club game.

"Premiership Rugby and the RFU are working together to examine a range of options to provide stronger foundations for the game. This process, involving close consultation with clubs and other stakeholders, includes consideration of issues including the structure of the league and visibility of financial information. Player welfare will remain a priority at all times."

Massie-Taylor, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, said: "Yesterday marked a very sad day for English rugby with Wasps, another of our much-loved teams, likely to go into administration. We know this is a desperate time for staff, players, and fans, but all concerned are working tirelessly to find a solution that allows the club to move forward. This is more than a business in difficulty, it's a community in distress and one that is a integral part of the wider rugby family.

"As well as supporting efforts to find a long-term sustainable future for both Wasps and Worcester Warriors, it is our responsibility to set a more sustainable path for English club rugby. This was on the agenda already, but we need to now accelerate the work we are doing with our clubs, the RFU, and other stakeholders across the game. Our shared goal must be to put in place stronger foundations that underpin the long-term prosperity for the sport in this country."

RFU CEO Sweeney said: "The news that Wasps is about to go into administration is very sad for English rugby. Like all rugby clubs Wasps has a great history and heritage and one that fans around the world connect with. The men's and women's teams have been the home for many great past and present England players.

"Two professional clubs facing financial difficulties is a clear barometer of the challenges being felt by the economy, sport and rugby union specifically. The economic environment has compounded these challenges and there is a clear need for more financial transparency from all clubs together with collective long-term investment and planning for the benefit of the professional game overall.

"Throughout the pandemic, rugby clubs have been beacons of their community, providing much-needed support for the communities they serve. Through adversity comes strength and I am confident that despite the difficulties of professional clubs, rugby will continue to deliver its core community values and welcome new and old members to the game."

(c) Sky Sports 2022: Will Greenwood: Wasps, Worcester crisis 'enormously worrying', calls for Premiership Rugby and RFU to find connected solution