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Diamond makes bolshy 'USP' claim about his Worcester takeover bid
Steve Diamond has claimed he is the unique selling point in his consortium bidding to take over the financially stricken Worcester. The out-of-work director of rugby was in charge when the Warriors played their last Gallagher Premiership match in September before going to the wall, and he has now popped his head back above the parapet with his ambitious plan to become the chief executive of Sixways Village, the investor group looking to rescue the club from administration.
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Diamond made his intentions known on Thursday during a 15-minute slide presentation to the media that he had shown just hours previously to RFU CEO Bill Sweeney. The ex-Sale boss doesn’t know whether his group’s bid is the only option in the running to take over Worcester and get the club back playing in next season’s Championship.
What he did insist, though, was that his presence made this particular bid special as he explained he was a rare breed in the English game having coached for years with Sale, a job he combined at times with the role of club CEO.
In a lengthy Q&A session that followed his slide presentation about his Worcester takeover plan, Diamond said: “To be fair, the USP is me because there are not too many people around who have done the business side of these rugby clubs and the rugby side, and you have got to have a certain amount of charisma around you to convince people to come to the Championship.
“You have got to have a certain amount of charisma about you and know-how and track record to get investors to come in and see the plan for five to ten years, not a quick, ‘Here, let’s make some money on the property’ which nobody can ever do because as we know a lot of it through the covenants has got to help the rugby business to create and sustain the legacy that the Duckworth family put in place which has been marginalised, to say the least.
“I have got my investors in place, I have got my senior management in place, I have got the high-performance department in place ready to go. That needs to be in situ immediately. You would be fooling yourself to think you can turn up next July and put a team out in the Championship, so the recruitment has to be done now. They are players out of contract as we know.
“There are about 20 players from Worcester who have got jobs through the assistance of me and the RPA and their agents and there are numerous people at Wasps getting positions. Putting a team together, a lot of people think it will be easy when they say there are so many players out but getting that combination right, you have got to have been in the game like I have to do it and there are three or four people who could do that only.”
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Diamond added that he wasn’t fully sure if there were going to be rival bids to rescue Worcester. “I don’t know if I am honest. I think there is more than one horse in the race but up until now, we have just been beavering bing the scenes, making sure we understand the numbers, understand the ramifications of having the P share, not having the P share, making sure the model works without it.
“It’s a bit of a phantom the P share. Not many people understand it… the business has to learn and evolve organically so that it can operate without a handout and the model I have run in Manchester (at Sale) for several years enables businesses to stand on their own two feet.
“What I found at Worcester in the eight, nine, ten months I was there was a really enthusiastic, skilled workforce who have not been treated with any respect by the previous incumbents… The days of blaming are gone. The emotion when these things happen, the first thing we do as humans is not look in the mirror.
“The very fact that wealthy owners have supported the sport, the RFU have supported the sport and PRL have supported the sport for 26, 27 years now is a testament to those people. What has happened at Worcester is unfortunate and there are ramifications for that, we will go through a process with the administrators and the insolvency service.
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“What has happened at Wasps is unfortunate but the RFU and PRL don’t own those clubs. They have some control of governance but they are not in charge of the purse strings so each club has to look at its own manifesto and decide how they are going to rock for the next three to five years and if they can cope with it… the biggest expense in the business is the wages.
“I have been around a long time and there are not too many people waving chequebooks to buy sports clubs. We have been unfortunate with what is on the record about the Worcester owners but the chap who has fallen on uncertain times at Wasps is a real credible businessman. Occasionally things get through the net but the RFU and PRL are addressing that and hopefully, we see no more of this.
“It is easy to blame people and make excuses but we have also had a pandemic which everybody has forgotten about and it has been difficult for these businesses to run. Looking at the future, if I can control the costs and my team can control the revenue-building processes that will be put in place then I think we can run a sustainable business.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Following his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
1 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
2 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
2 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to commentsMore useless words from Ben Smith -Please get another team to write about. SA really dont need your input, it suck anyway.
264 Go to commentsThis disgraceful episode must result in management and coach team sackings. A new manager with worse results than previous and the coaching staff need to coached. Awful massacre led by donkeys.
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