The thoughts of Chris Wright

[Shugs]

I have said it before, but creating a 10 team league and stopping promotion and relegation will kill off the professional game.

Maybe it needs to die? The professional game I mean.

I think it does. Certainly in England and Wales. A 10 team league would be an unmitigated disaster.

[wasps]

I have said it before, but creating a 10 team league and stopping promotion and relegation will kill off the professional game.

Maybe it needs to die? The professional game I mean.

I think it does. Certainly in England and Wales. A 10 team league would be an unmitigated disaster.

12 teams didn't work
14 teams probably wouldn't work, 10 teams likely won't either.


The problem is that there's not enough money coming into the game to cover the salaries the players want (deserve).




Everyone involved is looking to other sports to try to find the solution.
The football model is unlikely to work for English rugby because France has already got a huge step ahead of us there. The only way to beat that is to throw more money at it than the French are.... And that just doesn't look like working.


So ring fencing a smaller league of similar in essence to NFL.
The same teams regularly play each other (albeit with a bit of variety)... But it's clearly such a different model with their college system and draft to ensure the weaker teams get strengthened.




Ultimately the most likely method for long term success is for players to play for peanuts. Unfortunately that likely means the quality of the game drops and we're even less likely to get good sponsorship.




I'm coming around to the idea that a European league is the only way for English rugby, but only if the French buy into it, and I can't see that happening

[Bloke in North Dorset]

The size of the Prem is only part of the problem, for me the biggest long term threat to rugby is ring fencing. If there?s no entry into the league it kills aspiration at the lower levels. Most clubs won?t be interested but those that are should know that there is a route and we never know, they might find some innovative marketing and financing model or start to attract a large local crowd and wider following.

I?d also do away with the P shares, those being promoted should get an equal share of the spoils.

[JF]

The biggest threat to the game is money.

Iy's the Micawber principle. "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery."

The game has been miserable for years now. Players are being paid money that they don't bring in. Whether they deserve it or not, it's not there. There has to be proper financial regulation of the game, what exists now clearly doesn't work.

[Heathen]

Yeah, he sold us. Of course we all have Ph.Ds in hindsight.
Bottom line is he found us an owner in Hayes who threw toys out of the pram. We would not have been able to continue at AP if the club's new owners did not want us, the issue was Wright sold us and had he not sold us we would not be in the mess. Rumour has it LBND was persuasive in getting Hayes on board, and frankly that is where it went wrong, along with the whole not building our own prem quality ground in the first place.

Lol and Hayes were good mates. Both had love of Chelsea FC.

My gutfeel keeps leading me back to Eastwood. He did nothing of note at the RFU and as Wasps finance director, we all know what happened with the ill fated bond.

[WonkyWasp]

It would appear that Nick Eastwood was promoted beyond his abilities.

[Vespula Vulgaris]

I'm not convinced Nick was the issue.

[WonkyWasp]

Thanks VV.  I didn't think that originally but recently fingers have been pointing in that direction. Poirot would have difficulty sorting this lot out.  Thinking back to supporters numbers did we ever (when at the Ricoh/CBSA ) ever go down to below 10K?  Altho' we looked so sparse in that big  arena we were generally at the least numbering  10K, 12K, 14k, or more.  Seems crazy, doesn't it.  The numbers at the lowest at the Ricoh were always higher than the best at AP, I think.  I hope this latest episode in the RFU saga isn't a false dawn.