DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
ComeAllWithin (Harlequins Rugby)
HTML https://comeallwithin.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: ComeAllWithin Board
*****************************************************
#Post#: 113855--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: October 5, 2023, 2:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Is it still called a tweet? Shouldn't it be a kiss?
#Post#: 113856--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: October 5, 2023, 2:20 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: poorfour link ---
>
> What would happen to the existing debt?
> What would happen to the squads? Who would you cut? Or would
you ask them to take a pay cut? How would you handle player
welfare with a smaller squad?
> What would happen to the club admin staff?
> Would sponsorship and broadcast rights be able to stay at the
same level with fewer well-known players?
> What would have to happen to ticket prices to take up the
slack from backer funding?
>
> Starting again is one of those ideas that sounds clean and
simple in principle but would be very messy - and create
hardship for a lot of people who have worked to give you the
rugby we have today - in practice.
>
> In an ideal world, we wouldn't start from here. But the best
we can do if we don't want to risk the hard-won gains that teams
had made toward sustainability pre-COVID is to gradually make
changes that foster sustainability. One option that might work
would be to have a financial fair play framework that limits
squad spend to revenue but is phased in over several years to
allow for transition.
>
> It could start with some rules around the overall salary cap
and then introduce variations for clubs that can demonstrate
better financial capacity. The danger with that is that it
creates a structural advantage for the teams that have a good
revenue base - and actually of the surviving clubs only Quins
(above) and Sale (below) seem to be outliers from c£19-21m
revenue. If it's down to profitability, the likes of Saints are
much closer to a profit than Quins (though we may have been hit
last year by the train strikes around BG/BSKO)
>
--- End Quote ---
poorfour I was just going to say what I say to my people which
is, "don't give me problems, give me solutions" but then you
started giving some ideas. I would observe that off the top of
my head 5 well known clubs have hit the skids in recent years
but we are all still here blithely carrying on. I genuinely dont
think the nuclear option of actually "policing" the rules
properly is as scary as you might think. Next up is the
"enhanced contracts" to be announced in the PGA in December
which to me is a crock where wealthy owners with lawyers are
holding the rfu to ransom for more money.
#Post#: 113857--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: poorfour
Date: October 5, 2023, 3:06 am
---------------------------------------------------------
None of us can give solutions because none of us know enough of
the real picture. I'm just pointing out that there's a lot that
needs to be worked through.
I don't think the RFU or PRL are "blithely carrying on", but I
think people over-estimate how much influence they have. The
professional clubs are independent businesses.
The PRL is a club that the top few clubs created to agree common
rules (which at least one owner has repeatedly refused to stick
to) and negotiate with the RFU and potential revenue sources.
It's owned and governed by the club owners or their CEOs.
The RFU doesn't have direct control over the clubs or PRL. It
has a carrot, in that it has some money, and it has a stick in
that ultimately it can deny a club access to the competition. It
can refuse to approve a new owner or access for a club to a
competition on various criteria - which ultimately was the final
nail in the coffin for London Irish. But its own revenues took a
massive hit from COVID so it's also having to make some very
difficult choices.
The RFU has made some big mistakes - the most notable being
failure to get a grip on the clubs and players at the start of
professionalism and spending the windfall from 2015 on the new
East Stand hospitality suite, which in hindsight looks like a
white elephant. But those are in the past and absent a time
machine it can't change them.
The "enhanced contracts" - assuming you mean the hybrid
contracts that will give greater control over a core of 20-25
players - are essentially about ensuring that key players for
2027 stay in England and the RFU has a say in how they train and
when they play. The price for that is essentially covering the
time they're not available to the clubs.
Let's also remember that wealthy owners have effectively
bankrolled professional rugby for the past 25 years and have
collectively sunk over £100m into the game. Most of them
presumably hope to make a return eventually, but in the meantime
they are subsidising our enjoyment. if as reported Quins made a
£2m loss last year, then our owners subsidised us by about £10
per seat per game.
#Post#: 113895--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: deadlyfrom5yardsout
Date: October 6, 2023, 2:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
I think the whole thing is such a dogs dinner that trying to
"manage" our way out of the morass is a bit like trying to get a
discount on a house anywhere near NW4. Rearranging the
deckchairs on the Titanic spring to mind.
#Post#: 113973--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: DOK
Date: October 8, 2023, 8:12 am
---------------------------------------------------------
The failure of the premiership teams, which had been able to
shield their financial problems from the RFU, indicates the
problem. There is supposed to be better financial visibility
coming, but as people have said, the clubs are separate business
entities running their own affairs. That's how they wanted it
when professionalism began and the owners all thought they were
going to be multi-millionaires. They admitted the RFU had
whatever world rugby forced them to accept, but that was it.
That was why it took so long to hammer out some sort of
agreement for clubs making players available outside of world
rugby rules.
#Post#: 113982--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: RodneyRegis
Date: October 8, 2023, 10:28 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: deadlyfrom5yardsout link ---
>
>
> Playing devils advocaat, would that actually be so terrible in
the long run? Have a complete reset and re-build the whole thing
properly?
>
--- End Quote ---
Yes. There are rugby fans who watch the 6 nations, and then
there are rugby fans who follow clubs. If you take away the
clubs, and build franchises or whatever, you alienate all the
ones who follow clubs and the ones who watch the 6 nations won't
be remotely interested. Would you keep going to rugby every week
to watch a hybrid saracens/quins side? Would Tigers fans go and
watch Saintshampton?
#Post#: 113984--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: Brown Bottle
Date: October 8, 2023, 11:05 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: RodneyRegis link ---
>
> Yes. There are rugby fans who watch the 6 nations, and then
there are rugby fans who follow clubs. If you take away the
clubs, and build franchises or whatever, you alienate all the
ones who follow clubs and the ones who watch the 6 nations won't
be remotely interested. Would you keep going to rugby every week
to watch a hybrid saracens/quins side? Would Tigers fans go and
watch Saintshampton?
>
--- End Quote ---
I agree.
However, if they'd come up with some regional centrally funded
and managed layer above club level in 1995 there's a chance it
might have caught on given how few people actually went to watch
rugby then and how much attendances have grown since.
#Post#: 113988--------------------------------------------------
Re: Jersey Reds cease trading
DIR By: RodneyRegis
Date: October 8, 2023, 1:33 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Hindsight = 20:20.
the whole thing has been managed so badly.
*****************************************************
Page 7 of 7
DIR Previous Page