EXCLUSIVE: 'We are not the sick man of English rugby'
Nick Eastwood denies Wasps are the sick man of English rugby, weighed down by more than £50m of debt after their ground breaking move to the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and insists they will compete for big name signings after next year’s World Cup in Japan.
A £35m bond issue makes up the bulk of the debt and that is due to be repaid in 2020 while their Irish millionaire owner Derek Richardson’s personal commitment to the former English and European champions is now heading towards £20m. The Wasps Holdings group made a total loss before tax of £9.7m in the last financial year compared to £4.7m in the previous year and as RugbyPass reported last week there are real concerns about the club’s ability to keep top players and compete for leading talent when it comes onto the market.
However, against the backdrop of those figures Eastwood, the Wasps deputy chairman, has made it clear the club is not on the brink of financial disaster and with Premiership Rugby Ltd set to bank £240m from CVC Capital Partners for a 25 per cent stake in the business, there are reasons to be optimistic with each club set to receive around £20m as their share of the windfall.
Eastwood is even predicting an end to annual cumulative losses of around £30m in the Premiership stating: “The fact that some significant private investors are looking to get involved shows the game is at a tipping point, possibly similar to football in the 1990s. We are entering a new growth phase and while there will be challenges, the game is in great shape to move forward to where you can get a significant number of clubs breaking even.”
With England’s top clubs operating with a salary cap that is currently set in stone – with two marquee players allowed to be signed outside he £7m limit – to bring in new faces, clubs have to offload talent. That is why there is speculation swirling around Wasps with England fullback Elliot Daly a possible target for Saracens. However, Dai Young, the Wasps director of rugby insists his prized possession is under contract. Young said: “There are players out of contract at the end of the year, Elliot is not one of them. By the nature of them being out of contract, teams are going to be interested, there are going to be rumours.”
Amongst those rumours is Springbok fullback Willie le Roux who could be heading back to South Africa or Japan after the World Cup while Bristol are understood to be interested in taking England No.8 Nathan Hughes away from Wasps with a lucrative deal.
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Eastwood said: “We are not the sick man of English rugby and we are in phase when we have to invest in the business. There is a realistic possibility that in three years the game will look very different financially than it does now.
“The owners like Derek, Nigel Wray, at Saracens and Bath’s Bruce Craig didn’t get to where they are accumulating the wealth they have achieved by throwing bad money after bad – they know what they are doing. They have learnt through their business careers that you have to invest heavily but you reap the benefit further down the line. People are picking up on words used by our auditors which say that if in the event that shareholder support was not forthcoming there would be doubt over the company’s ability to continue. Derek is committed to the club and his support is rock solid.
“The reality is we are still losing money and it means we are dependent on shareholder support and that puts us in exactly the same position as every other Premiership club.
“The key aspect of this is the cost of the playing squad and the salary cap is flat for the next two years which means you can keep the costs flat while hopefully generating more revenue. We hope to get into profit in a few years rather than many years. There is genuine optimism that if we all act sensibly as a group in the Premiership revenues can keep growing.
“We have had three full seasons at Coventry and nobody said it would be easy and it is still very early in the whole endeavour and we are effectively a start-up and any business requires significant investment in the early years. We are perfectly happy where we are and now it is about phase two; growing the fan base and getting the fundamentals solid and Derek has always known that will be the case. Many aspects of the business model; the hotel and concert business are key and are going very well.”
Eastwood accepts bringing in more big names will require departures and added: “Dai is always planning 18 months in advance and we are well ahead in our thinking about how to divvy up the money for players going forward.
“Essentially, you have the salary cap and two marquee players so if there are an influx of Southern Hemisphere stars post-World Cup then the only way you could get them would be to replace one marquee player with another or get rid of enough salary under the cap to afford whatever the player is asking for. It is as simple as that.
“There are probably half the Premiership clubs who are around the cap figure, two or three relatively close and the others have a got a bit of room.”
Eastwood could not give a start date for the club’s ambitious new training facility outside Coventry, due to on-going negotiations but insisted the project was on track.
Comments on RugbyPass
I don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
4 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
24 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
24 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
24 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
24 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
9 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
9 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
28 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
24 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
28 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
24 Go to comments