The Welsh Rugby Union is like a bad referee

Evan Wall

Good governance should be like refereeing. All referees enforce the laws and actively manage the game in front of them. But good referees only intervene when necessary, creating the conditions for the game to flow with minimal interference. The best referees are those you forget are even there.

A bad referee is one who constantly draws attention to themselves, prevents the game from flowing and ultimately loses control. Good refereeing is about creating the conditions in which the game can flourish and ensuring the focus is on the game and not the whistle.

Abi Tierney and Dave Reddin have been bad referees: they have failed to create the conditions for Welsh rugby to flourish. Granted, they did not inherit a healthy situation, but they have only made it worse. The WRU’s bureaucrats should not be making more headlines than the star players. Like referees on the pitch, the bureaucrats off the pitch should remain in the background.

It is now over a year since the WRU announced its decision to cut a region, yet neither we nor they know which region is to be axed. There’s no clear-cut strategy behind their proposals; rather, it is a game of Russian roulette.

The mismanagement is causing immeasurable damage to both the Scarlets and the Ospreys and, more broadly, to fans’ interest in Welsh rugby. How can a club operate with full commitment and fulfil its potential with such uncertainty cast over it?

In addition, reports emerged this week that the WRU was in advanced discussions about Welsh sides joining the English Premiership, despite proclaiming its loyalty to the URC for over a year. We are not only uncertain about which Welsh regions will survive, but also about which league they will play in.

This is not strategic planning; it is very, very poor, short-term thinking. The WRU hierarchy are hopping from one disaster to the next, like a frog jumping from gutter to gutter. There is no convincing vision for the future, nor any apparent understanding of what Welsh rugby needs.

I am also afraid to say that Tierney and Reddin appear more interested in protecting their own salaries and careers than in serving the greater good of Welsh rugby. Had they put Welsh rugby before their own career ambitions, they would have stepped aside.

Finances

The WRU’s financial position should have prompted serious scrutiny of its leadership. Recently, the union announced a loss before tax of £18.1 million. In any private company, such a result would invite searching questions about the competence of those at the top, if not a change in leadership. Instead, the WRU has sought to use its financial difficulties as justification for its plans to cull professional rugby from a major part of west Wales.

The union blames soaring operating costs, lower average ticket prices, some lower attendances and pressure on consumer spending for its losses. But how can its leadership fail to recognise that its own decisions are contributing to the problem?

By hanging a noose over the Welsh regions and leaving their futures in perpetual uncertainty, they have alienated the very supporters on whom the game depends. Fans are voting with their feet and (more importantly) their pockets. It cannot be denied that the WRU’s mismanagement is eroding the desire of Welsh rugby supporters to engage with their national sport.

Ultimately, the problem is not simply that the WRU has made a series of poor decisions. It is that its leadership has repeatedly intervened without providing the direction, stability or understanding needed to manage Welsh rugby effectively.

Unclear

It has put forward crushing proposals that are widely opposed and unbelievably unclear. The only thing its proposals promise is irreversible damage to the game of rugby in west Wales.

Like a bad referee, the WRU’s leadership is making it up as it goes along. The WRU has disrupted the game rather than created the conditions for it to flourish. With their gross incompetence and lack of control over the situation, they have made themselves the centre of attention in Welsh rugby.

Welsh rugby is rotting from the top down. If the game is to recover, the people at its core must change. The only hope for saving Welsh rugby is to change those at the top.