My ?Marshall Plan? to save English club rugby
Exclusive: Premiership Rugby chief executive vows no more clubs will go bust this season but warns game in England is ?not out of the woods?
By Ben Rumsby 3 November 2023 ? 11:48am
Massie-Taylor said it could take up to five years for Premiership clubs to recover
The chief executive of Premiership Rugby has vowed no more of its clubs will go bust this season under its ?Marshall Plan? to rebuild the ravaged domestic game.
In his first major newspaper interview since the current campaign got under way three weeks ago, Simon Massie-Taylor admits the sport in England is not ?out of the woods? amid its worst crisis of the professional era but insists that no Premiership team faces imminent collapse.
With an epic World Cup having now drawn to a close, the club game will be under more scrutiny than ever following last season?s demise of Wasps and Worcester Warriors and that this summer of London Irish.
In a wide-ranging sit-down with Telegraph Sport that lays out Premiership Rugby?s blueprint for recovery, Massie-Taylor says:
It will take up to five years to complete and clubs will continue to lose money
There are plans to cut a salary cap that is controversially returning to pre-Covid levels next season
There are talks with the Government about making clubs? repayments of Covid-19 bailout loans more manageable
A new two-division Premiership could adopt rugby league?s new grading system that will see social media followers contribute towards promotion and relegation
Hybrid contracts for England players and a radical shake-up of top-flight academies are both part of a new Professional Game Partnership (PGP) to be unveiled next month.
It was in August last year that the news ? first reported by Telegraph Sport ? that Wasps and Worcester were facing winding-up petitions from HM Revenue & Customs lit the fuse on an unprecedented crisis in the English game.
While too late to rescue those clubs, or even London Irish or Championship winners Jersey Reds, measures have since been put in place to prevent a repeat under what Massie-Taylor dubbed Premiership Rugby?s ?Marshall Plan? - the name coined for the reconstruction of Europe after the Second World War.
The rugby version has so far included the launch of a National Football League (NFL)-style sporting commission and much closer scrutiny of clubs? solvency, culminating in the formation of a Financial Monitoring Panel.
It was this improved ?early-warning system? that emboldened Massie-Taylor to give a one-word answer when asked if he could guarantee all 10 Premiership clubs would survive the season.
?Yes,? he said, before playing down concerns raised last term about Harlequins in particular. ?Harlequins are fine.?
Massie-Taylor's 'Marshall Plan' is designed to prevent more clubs going the way of London Irish
Not that Massie-Taylor was complacent amid what a report by MPs in January concluded were ?clearly unsustainable? annual losses averaging ?4 million per club.
?This is really a four or five-year recovery plan if we?re honest,? he said. ?We?re still in a fragile state and we?re in a fragile state with the economy as well.
?So, I don?t think the sport?s out of the woods yet. I think what we have got ourselves into a position in, with the Premiership, is to have much more visibility with club finances.
?There still is a group in a loss-making position and will be for a while. That?s the reality.?
That will arguably not be helped by the decision to end after this season an emergency cut in the salary cap from ?6.4 million to ?5 million brought in during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Massie-Taylor said there were plans to reduce it again until ?revenues get to a certain level? but not before 2025.
He added: ?It?s not perfect because we?re overstretching ourselves at the moment. But you?ve got to think about the market, the player market.
?We need to be competitive with France, need to be competitive globally generally. So, that bit?s tricky.?
The salary cap quandary is further complicated by the fact Premiership Rugby is trying to convince the Government to make repayments of its clubs? Covid bailout loan ? which at one point totalled ?124 million ? more manageable.
Revealing that Premiership Rugby submitted its ?Marshall Plan? to ministers last month, Massie-Taylor said: ?What we?re trying to do is find a way in which we can pay that back in an affordable way, so that the taxpayer isn?t at any more risk.?
Included in that submission, and likely of most interest to rugby fans, was the planned launch of a two-division Premiership from 2025 featuring 10 clubs in the top tier and 12 in the second.
It is hoped that, by then ? or even sooner in a way that could bring everything forward by a year ? one or more of Wasps, Worcester, London Irish and Jersey Reds return from the abyss to take part in the new competition.
Which clubs make the cut, and in what division, is likely to provoke a heated debate, one Massie-Taylor stoked with an enthusiastic endorsement of rugby league?s controversial new grading system that takes into account social media followers and match attendances.
?When we look at criteria for promotion and relegation through Prem 1 and Prem 2, you?ve got to look at some of that template,? he said.
?It?s like going to the gym: you don?t just focus on your guns, you focus on everything else.
?You?ve got to look at the total picture. Because, otherwise, you?re just putting the system in jeopardy.?
The ?total picture? also includes halting the recent talent drain to France and Massie-Taylor confirmed that Premiership Rugby and the Rugby Football Union had ? as revealed by Telegraph Sport ? reached an agreement that would see England?s current 45-strong elite player squad replaced by an arrangement that would give head coach Steve Borthwick much greater control of a core group of around 20-25 players.
Massie-Taylor said: ?It will also, hopefully, provide those 25 players with more income certainty, which will help when we?re talking around player contract negotiations and moving to France.?
He also confirmed Telegraph Sport?s revelation last month that another feature of the new PGP would be the introduction of an NFL-style draft system at Premiership academies to combat a lack of game time for young English players.
?Britain?s got talent but it needs to be farmed and nurtured,? he said.
For now, though, just getting through a Premiership season without a club going bust would be no small achievement.
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