Reveals Brendan Venter in today's Telegraph.
Nigel Wray bowed to pressure to step down as Saracens chairman on Thursday feeling ‘disillusioned’ at his treatment by fellow club owners in the wake of the salary-cap scandal.
In November, Saracens were hit with an unprecedented 35-point deduction and £5.4million fine for breaking Premiership Rugby’s salary cap over a three-year period. The punishment barely stemmed the anger towards Saracens from other Premiership clubs, in part because of Wray’s lack of contrition since his business arrangements with leading England players, including Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje, were uncovered. Exeter Chiefs owner Tony Rowe called for the English and European champions to be thrown out of the league. Wray has not attended an away Premiership game since the ruling was delivered.
Brendan Venter, the former director of rugby who remains closely involved with the club, believes that Wray, 72, was planning to step down as the public face of the club regardless. Yet Venter told Telegraph Sport that Wray was shocked at the level of vitriol aimed towards him.
“Nigel was disillusioned,” Venter said. “Nigel is in rugby because he loved the camaraderie and the friendship, which makes the sport unique. When this thing happened, there was a side of rugby that he became disillusioned with. He did not know it worked like that. That would have hurt him the most. He liked all those club owners personally. He speaks very highly of them all. He saw these people as his friends and then they turned on him. I am sure that played a role in his decision because at the age of 72 you do not want to be fighting people. You want to be enjoying rugby and life.”
Also moving aside is chief executive Mitesh Velani, who has taken up a consultancy position, with Ed Griffiths returning to his former role in an interim capacity. Griffiths previously left the club under something of a cloud in 2015 when allegations of Saracens breaching the salary cap first came to light.
Crucially, Wray and his family will continue to bankroll Saracens, even though he is stepping down after 25 years as chairman. Without his financial support, the north London club would collapse. In the last set of released financial accounts, Wray wrote off £48m of debt accrued by Saracens.
In a statement released on the club website, Wray emphasised that he is not walking away, which means he cannot enter any further co-investment schemes with players. “As we enter a new year, a new decade, it is time for the club to make a fresh start,” Wray said. “I am not getting any younger and feel this is the right moment for me to stand down as chairman and just enjoy being a fan of this incredible rugby club. I will always be committed to the wonderful Saracens family.
“The Wray family will continue to provide the required financial support to the club, and I will remain actively engaged in the work of the Saracens Sport Foundation and Saracens High School, as part of the club’s ongoing commitment to our community in north London.”
Wray’s impact and philanthropy extend far beyond the various patches of north London that Saracens have called home over the years. His signings of world superstars like Francois Pienaar, Philippe Sella and Michael Lynagh in the early days of professionalism brought exotic glamour to the Premiership. Under former chief executive Paul Deakin, Saracens also broke new ground in marketing matches, catapulting their crowds from 2,000 to 20,000. Wray also invested heavily in the academy, which has produced scores of England internationals in the past decade.
Yet as the godfather of the current Saracens dynasty which has spawned five Premiership titles and three European Cups, Venter believes that Wray’s motives are still misunderstood. “You forget how valuable Nigel’s contribution has been towards English rugby,” Venter said. “The only way English rugby can have these brilliant rugby players is if they stay and play in England and that is because of people like Nigel. It was never about winning trophies, it was about his innate generosity.”
Venter gives the example of Jannie de Beer, the South Africa fly-half who signed for Saracens only to rupture his knee ligaments shortly afterwards. “Nigel honoured the contract for the entire duration when legally six months was all that was required,” Venter said. “There was no value for Nigel there. There are heaps of other examples.”
In the eyes of his supporters, Wray’s legacy remains one of benevolence and kindness. To his detractors, he masterminded cheating on a scale with Lance Armstrong. The middle ground is vanishingly small.
Always a Wasp
