WRU to pay £1M to regions to retain stars

WRU are investing an extra £2.5M in rugby following an excellent year on the pitch (and therefore financially off it). £1M is to help the regions to retain players but no specific details how it will be distributed.

Watch this space

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/23072439

That's about enough to contract Adam Jones, Alan Wyn Jones, and Leigh Half Penny. Joy.

Interesting, odd timing to sneak this announcement out

It's promising, that's for sure, but I've become so wary of the WRU and their smoke screens these days. Roger Lewis is the master of spin. He likes to annouce things that put the WRU in a good light, but then you dig a bit deeper and it's not as good as it seems. The key bit is the statement that they do not yet know how it will be distributed. If you're making an announcement why not decide beforehand exactly how it will be distrubuted so that info can be relayed to the fans/media/interested parties. Why be so clandestine about it. Otherwise, people like me question the gesture. It might be earmarked for academies, or for feeder clubs, or coaching or travel for all we know. It might not actually help us to retain any players.

I'm only basing this on past indescretions which has given Roger a bad reputation - hopefully he'll come good on this one!

"The one-off windfall is part of a package worth £2.5 million for the Welsh game, split between grassroots, the regions and the national team. "

The regions get £1m (one off payment, maybe to keep them quiet over the RRW issues?), so that is £250,000 per region. That would not have kept George North at PYS or Roberts at the Blues. So it is not really going to help keep our stars, but may help keep our boarder line stars.

bit too late for us to keep hold of George North. Like Coleman said £1million won't go very far. Think this story is more PR than anything - also any good news is followed by bad news or an attack on the regions.

Plus knowing Roger there would be so many conditions attached to the £1 million might not be worth it.

Hopefully he won't start trying to move players around the regions either. Still don't see what he gained by offering George North to the Blues.....

Contract top up cash I reckon which will be specifically targeted at certain players rather than simply shared equally amongst the 4 regions.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:That would not have kept George North at PYS or Roberts at the Blues. .

£250,000 would certainly kept both at their regions

Add an extra £100,000 to both contract would be enough I would say - Adding £250,000 to contract that are probably already over £250,000 would be insane and completely disproportionate.

think the add on's will help:

Scarlets: keep hold of foxy (1 year left on contract)
Dragons: keep hold of faletau (1 year left on contract)
Blues: Keep hold of HP (1 year left on contract)
Ospreys: poor ospreys have an entire pack to keep happy!

anyone else think the wru are due to announce their end year result? Which will probably show a very healthy profit, this £1m is just to head off any criticism that would be thrown at them.

Still the regions can't turn it down.

Only in Wales would we moan about getting £1m extra. That will make £4.25m each the regions will get next season. Thats before they have sold a ticket, a shirt, a pie or any sponsorship.

Griff wrote:The key bit is the statement that they do not yet know how it will be distributed. If you're making an announcement why not decide beforehand exactly how it will be distrubuted so that info can be relayed to the fans/media/interested parties.  Why be so clandestine about it.

That was my first thought as well.

I still have a problem with the idea that keeping hold of all our internationals is a good thing. We have young promising players coming through, but there'll be fewer squad / team places for them if all our Test players stay put. What good is a production line if you don't take anything off the end of it?

I think it is more of a case of paying for the players wages when they are with team Wales, so of that 1m it pays for about 6/8 weeks wages during the 6N and about 6/8 weeks wages during the Autumn, which to me seems about right.

doctornickolas wrote:Only in Wales would we moan about getting £1m extra. That will make £4.25m each the regions will get next season. Thats before they have sold a ticket, a shirt, a pie or  any sponsorship.

Will this then please stop the whining about not having as much as the AP, were all poor?

Looks like with all the ticket sales etc the regions are much better off that most of the AP

pioden gorllewin wrote:think the add on's will help:

Scarlets: keep hold of foxy (1 year left on contract)
Dragons:  keep hold of faletau (1 year left on contract)
Blues: Keep hold of HP (1 year left on contract)
Ospreys: poor ospreys have an entire pack to keep happy!

anyone else think the wru are due to announce their end year result? Which will probably show a very healthy profit, this £1m is just to head off any criticism that would be thrown at them.

Still the regions can't turn it down.

Most of the in demand players seem to have left already

250,000 is enough to keep 2/3 players happy, but there are not that many contracts up at the end of next year - so I guess if this is earmarked for current internationals, they will try to get a few to resign early, or use it to get long contracts on the big name

Who's contracts are up next year and are likely to be in demand? Halfpenny, Davies, Faletau...??? Some of the O's forwards I guess.

Cuthbert is on a new contract, and Warburton has stated he doesn't want to leave, B.Davies won't be in huge demand.

North has left, Preistland won't be in high demand, hasn't Ken Owens signed a new contract. I guess Liam Williams will have a few suiters, but not paying the silly money

Dragons don't have Lydiate anymore, can't see huge offers coming in for anyone but Faletau

Not sure on the O's situation, but they have been pretty good at keeping their big names, Tipuric, AWJ and A.Jones could get big offers though.


Any chance that this money could be used to bring back Welsh internationals to Wales? (Hook to the Blues please )

Hmmm i guess if the money is used to say top up a contract. Hypothetical Example: Ospreys are offering Ian Evans £100,000 a year for three years to keep him in Wales. Brive offer him £145,000. The O's apply for £45,000 of this fund to keep a current Welsh international in Wales, WRU signs off (hopfully no strings attached). But then it could be viewed as a way to maintain the level of say The O's when the Dragons who only have 2/3 internationals won't be getting a fair slice of the pie.

Coleman wrote:Hmmm i guess if the money is used to say top up a contract. Hypothetical Example: Ospreys are offering Ian Evans £100,000 a year for three years to keep him in Wales. Brive offer him £145,000. The O's apply for £45,000 of this fund to keep a current Welsh international in Wales, WRU signs off (hopfully no strings attached). But then it could be viewed as a way to maintain the level of say The O's when the Dragons who only have 2/3 internationals won't be getting a fair slice of the pie.

My thoughts too.
No details yet though as is the norm, so it's wait and see again.

doctornickolas wrote:Only in Wales would we moan about getting £1m extra. That will make £4.25m each the regions will get next season. Thats before they have sold a ticket, a shirt, a pie or  any sponsorship.

Do the regions already get 4m? i didn't know that, i thought they were far worse of then that.

The Regions get 3.25m a year from the WRU. That covers player release, their TV contract with the BBC and Sky for the HC and stuff.

Coleman wrote:The Regions get 3.25m a year from the WRU. That covers player release, their TV contract with the BBC and Sky for the HC and stuff.

WRONG

Next year they will get £16million:

£7million direct funding from WRU;
£9million from TV contracts;

Split 4 ways, that's £4million each before sponsorship and matchday income!

The salary cap is only £3.5million!

So multimillionaire owners such as Peter Thomas can keep his £200million safely in the bank whilst enjoying his weekend hobby of running a rugby club at the expense of the WRU and the regional rugby supporter!

Sorry, I didn't realise that the money had gone up. It might not even have gone up I just had £M3.25 in my head. Has the new Sky Deal for the Rabo been factored in to this? I agree with what you're saying about the salary cap being less than the total money received by the WRU, this is without the Tickets, Shirts, Pints and Pies. Should we be looking at increasing the cap after only one year of having it?

regions get

£9m from tournaments
£6m direct from WRU
£1m paid for by the WRU for the acadamies (£250k each)
£1m mentioned above

That is £4.25m worth of funding for next year.

doctornickolas wrote:regions get

£9m from tournaments
£6m direct from WRU
£1m paid for by the WRU for the acadamies (£250k each)
£1m mentioned above

That is £4.25m worth of funding for next year.

I see, I thought the academy funding was part of the £6million.

Scrumdown wrote:

Coleman wrote:The Regions get 3.25m a year from the WRU. That covers player release, their TV contract with the BBC and Sky for the HC and stuff.

WRONG

Next year they will get £16million:

£7million direct funding from WRU;
£9million from TV contracts;

Split 4 ways, that's £4million each before sponsorship and matchday income!

The salary cap is only £3.5million!

So multimillionaire owners such as Peter Thomas can keep his £200million safely in the bank whilst enjoying his weekend hobby of running a rugby club at the expense of the WRU and the regional rugby supporter!

Brings up a few questions.  If 'owners' don't really have to invest in the ongoing financial affairs of their respective Regions (WRU going over what the salary budget would be plus sponsorships and crowd attendances) then can anyone really pin down how much these 'owners' do actually invest and on what they invest that amount on?  Surely there is a publically viewable account trail for these regions.  But as Scrumdown says...it seems they can sit back pretty much and light a cigar as the WRU funds their 'privately owned' Regions for them??

What I don't get, and I've asked this many times, is why the Dragons (my region) continue to state that they are only able to afford about £2m on salaries, and that we are not able to get anywhere near the salary cap. Either they are stealing the other £2m (I don't think they are BTW Mr Dragons Lawyer) or the figures quoted are not as straightforward and clear cut as we are meant to believe.

This thread has confused me, does anyone know what's going on in Welsh Rugby? Is this why the PWC report was supressed?

I've tried to work it out from this, but can't figure out much:

WRU 2012 financial report.

http://www.wru.co.uk/downloads/WRU_ARA_2012.pdf

I've seen the Financial Report and someone broke it down very well in a thread on here before. It seems like the Regions should be making a good profit every year. Although i suspect some money from the Blues is going towards those "low interest loans" Pies gives us.

All I can see from the financial report is tha pt for the 2012 year the regions got £15.1m. It doesn't say they get any other monies. This may be different for 2013, obviously.

"The allocations to the four Regions have continued to increase by 1% (2011: 6%) to £15.1m (including the competition income referred to above). These allocations cover all international player release and provide core financial support for the four Regions and reflect the Participation Agreement signed in September 2009."

There are other costs than players wages. Things like coaches wages, equipment for training, transportation to way games, etc, right down to wages for programme sellers or bar staff, and even electric and water bills.

I guess the small bills do add up, not that staffing and utilities are a small.

I reckon the regions need to pay for the academy out of that. The financials doesn't seem to show a separate payment to the regions for academy costs.

Griff wrote:I've tried to work it out from this, but can't figure out much:

WRU 2012 financial report.

http://www.wru.co.uk/downloads/WRU_ARA_2012.pdf

Bluesman & I had a debate a few weeks back where we largely worked out the overall figures - sadly I can't remember which thread it was.

Anyway, WRU "Allocations to the Regions" totalled £15.13m last year, or just under £4m each. Which given the salary cap is basically enough to pay a squad, and some of the coaching/support staff - presumably sponsorship, match ticket sales and in-ground ad revenue have to cover off the other running costs (ground maintenance or rental, academy, etc).

The real problem the regions face is servicing past debts. Unfortunately I can't find any published accounts for the regions online, but anecdotally (from posts on here and on the BBC 606 plus rumours about the PWC report) back in the early noughties the owners pumped in shedloads of £s, which were largely wasted. I suspect most of the debts on the regions' books is owed to the owners (though I may be wrong on that).

If the debts are from money pumped in by the "sugar daddies", I can understand why they may not be keen to throw in more money on top of millions paid in already. And any operating surpluses they pocket is probably earning a lot lower return on investment than they could be getting if the money was in shares/the bank/other business loans/etc. That said, it's not necessarily up to the WRU to bail them out.

If the debts are direct loans from 3rd parties then the regions have no option but to pay interest on the debt, and pay it off when it comes due - and I suspect that in that case any surplus from current income/expenditure is getting eaten by the interest.

Griff wrote:I reckon the regions need to pay for the academy out of that. The financials doesn't seem to show a separate payment to the regions for academy costs.

Thats because the £1million represents estimated value of support costs such as use of coaches (dale mcintosh being one) employed by WRU but used by blues academy.

It is not cash funding.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:There are other costs than players wages.  Things like coaches wages, equipment for training, transportation to way games, etc, right down to wages for programme sellers or bar staff, and even electric and water bills.

don't forget there are other income sources too such as matchday income and sponsorship income.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:There are other costs than players wages.  Things like coaches wages, equipment for training, transportation to way games, etc, right down to wages for programme sellers or bar staff, and even electric and water bills.

Well do the maths again.  4 million less the 3.5 salary cap.  That's £500,000 plus sponsorship plus attendance figures plus profits from food drink to go on that other stuff.  What would all that you've quoted cost on average for the Regions?  

Going on Scrumdown's point, I still see fat cat owners with more than enough money to invest, sitting down and taking some nice contributions from the WRU, moaning about profits through each season and yet probably taking some handsome profits in, given that the salary caps probably aren't being reached by all regions and the investments from the owners seem to be minimal in creating truly heavy hitting European sides?

Something doesn't quite add up

£7million appears to me to be a lot for the WRU to be paying in return for a 4th international and access to players for part of the year plus other add ons such as NWQ restrictions.

I doubt that the salaries of the top 30 players for the whole year comes anywhere near £7million.

The reality therefore is that part of this £7million is a sibsidy and I for one would be extremely peed off if wealthy individuals such as Peter Thomas were able to profit from income derived from ordinary folk paying £70 for tickets at the millenium stadium.

On the other hand I am quite happy for that money to be spent on grass roots rugby.

Scrumdown wrote:

Griff wrote:I reckon the regions need to pay for the academy out of that. The financials doesn't seem to show a separate payment to the regions for academy costs.

Thats because the £1million represents estimated value of support costs such as use of coaches (dale mcintosh being one) employed by WRU but used by blues academy.

It is not cash funding.

Not sure what you mean here. Which £1m are we talking about?

Griff wrote:

Scrumdown wrote:

Griff wrote:I reckon the regions need to pay for the academy out of that. The financials doesn't seem to show a separate payment to the regions for academy costs.

Thats because the £1million represents estimated value of support costs such as use of coaches (dale mcintosh being one) employed by WRU but used by blues academy.

It is not cash funding.

Not sure what you mean here. Which £1m are we talking about?

The cost of running the regional academies is partly paid for by the WRU and so even though the regions receive £6million in cash (now £7million) the whole package will be worth £8million next year.

So last year the regions received £15million from the WRU as reported in the annual report but WRU also paid expenses on behalf of the regions of £1million so total package was £16million and will be £17million next year.

When you consider that total income of WRU is around £60million, nearly a 3rd is now being handed over to unelected multimillionaire owners of the regions who quite frankly do not know what they are doing.

Here we go again;

"Funding" is such an ugly word. Makes the £6.2m sound like a student grant. Payment for services is better and more accurate.
Also the £9m tv and comp cash is not the WRU's to give. They simply receive it and pass it on to the 4 regions.

Just a couple of points, it is well documented that the Ospreys receive £150,000 from the WRU for their Academy, and that we spend from our own resources 4 times that amount making £750,000 altogether,if the WRU think that £150,000 can sustainably support 4 area teams within Ospreylia at U16,18 and 20 level or even just the elite squads at that age level, they need to be coming into this world,the £3.5 mill which is self imposed is only for the HC squad, the Os have a lot more than that on their player wage bill.
I know a player that was on our books about 10 years ago, that has played at the lower echelons of Regional Rugby, recently played at the top end of a Championship club in England and has now signed for a Div 1 club and his wages are £50,000 a year for 2 days training and 1 match a week, so how much do these top players need to earn to stay in Wales.
This is also not including the wages of all the coaches and support staff.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:There are other costs than players wages.  Things like coaches wages, equipment for training, transportation to way games, etc, right down to wages for programme sellers or bar staff, and even electric and water bills.

2009 - Staff numbers and costs for Cardiff RFC Ltd (includes Blues and WP team)
Executive directors (2)
Coaching/playing staff (70)
Operational/admin/chair arrangers (25)
Total staff = 97
Total costs = £5.4m

SecretFly wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote:There are other costs than players wages.  Things like coaches wages, equipment for training, transportation to way games, etc, right down to wages for programme sellers or bar staff, and even electric and water bills.

Well do the maths again.  4 million less the 3.5 salary cap.  That's £500,000 plus sponsorship plus attendance figures plus profits from food drink to go on that other stuff.  What would all that you've quoted cost on average for the Regions?  

Going on Scrumdown's point, I still see fat cat owners with more than enough money to invest, sitting down and taking some nice contributions from the WRU, moaning about profits through each season and yet probably taking some handsome profits in, given that the salary caps probably aren't being reached by all regions and the investments from the owners seem to be minimal in creating truly heavy hitting European sides?

Something doesn't quite add up

Something doesn't add up if the regons should be able to stay afloat solely on the WRU cash abd tickets, sponsorship etc, why do fat cats need to be putting their hands in their pockets at all? Seeing as the regions are all supposedly in the red, i believe, with money men throwing in cash as well, something is really not adding up.

Can we not turn this in to a Regions getting shafted/WRU getting shafted hate thread. Some of the information in here is really interesting. Like i didn't know (if it is true) that the 3.5m Salary Cap was on the HC squad. So we can exceed that and have a larger squad for the Rabo and LV (I assume most of these players would be on academy contracts). Are development/academy contracts exempt from the Salary Cap. From a Blues point of view i have always been led to believe that we owe Pies a lot of money through services rendered by companies he owes, this is the boards fault for allowing him to turn the Blues in to a revenue stream for himself. I've never thought of him as a club man, just a man who wants to make money.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

2009 - Staff numbers and costs for Cardiff RFC Ltd (includes Blues and WP team)
Executive directors (2)
Coaching/playing staff (70)
Operational/admin/chair arrangers (25)
Total staff = 97
Total costs = £5.4m

Excluding the squad and coaches, that's about 2M on 27 members of staff.  Hmmm.

Cardiff Dave wrote:Here we go again;

"Funding" is such an ugly word. Makes the £6.2m sound like a student grant. Payment for services is better and more accurate.
Also the £9m tv and comp cash is not the WRU's to give. They simply receive it and pass it on to the 4 regions.

£7million next year. pthomas, hazell and co are not selling anything that the wru couldn't do themselves. In fact, with £4million funding upfront and a salary cap of £3.5million I reckon the regions under current management are massively underperforming and in the real world would be ripe for takeover.

Scrumdown wrote:
So multimillionaire owners such as Peter Thomas can keep his £200million safely in the bank whilst enjoying his weekend hobby of running a rugby club at the expense of the WRU and the regional rugby supporter!

Chairman not owner and he'll be gone soon apparently, so somebody else will take over. Cardiff also owe him around about £7m. Hope he doesn't ask for it to be paid back.
Company accounts available here (will only cost you a quid);
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/findCompanyInfo.shtml

I don't think anyone is saying that the funding from the WRU is not good or is insignificant. It's just that there may be other things that are hidden perhaps that we don't see. I just can't fathom how the Dragons' salary spend is reportedly (by the coach) £2m under the amount we're given. There must be extra costs that come out.

And yes, the £3.5m cap is on the HC squad only. So that's about £100,000 per player average. The top earners are probably all £200,000 plus so there must be quite a few players lower down the pay scale to get to that average. In other words, £3.5m is not a huge amount for 35 pro rugby players (in comparison to others outside Wales).

Griff wrote:I don't think anyone is saying that the funding from the WRU is not good or is insignificant. It's just that there may be other things that are hidden perhaps that we don't see. I just can't fathom how the Dragons' salary spend is reportedly (by the coach) £2m under the amount we're given. There must be extra costs that come out.

And yes, the £3.5m cap is on the HC squad only. So that's about £100,000 per player average. The top earners are probably all £200,000 plus so there must be quite a few players lower down the pay scale to get to that average. In other words, £3.5m is not a huge amount for 35 pro rugby players (in comparison to others outside Wales).

Griff, you should know the player I'm talking about he played for your team 2 or 3 years ago

Scrumdown wrote:

Cardiff Dave wrote:Here we go again;

"Funding" is such an ugly word. Makes the £6.2m sound like a student grant. Payment for services is better and more accurate.
Also the £9m tv and comp cash is not the WRU's to give. They simply receive it and pass it on to the 4 regions.

£7million next year. pthomas, hazell and co are not selling anything that the wru couldn't do themselves. In fact, with £4million funding upfront and a salary cap of £3.5million I reckon the regions under current management are massively underperforming and in the real world would be ripe for takeover.

Don't get me started on PT.

Griff wrote:I don't think anyone is saying that the funding from the WRU is not good or is insignificant. It's just that there may be other things that are hidden perhaps that we don't see. I just can't fathom how the Dragons' salary spend is reportedly (by the coach) £2m under the amount we're given. There must be extra costs that come out.

And yes, the £3.5m cap is on the HC squad only. So that's about £100,000 per player average. The top earners are probably all £200,000 plus so there must be quite a few players lower down the pay scale to get to that average. In other words, £3.5m is not a huge amount for 35 pro rugby players (in comparison to others outside Wales).

The entire squad cap in England was £4M until last year. That's generally for squads bigger than 35. I think most 'squad' players are on roughly £60k.

Cardiff Dave wrote:

Scrumdown wrote:
So multimillionaire owners such as Peter Thomas can keep his £200million safely in the bank whilst enjoying his weekend hobby of running a rugby club at the expense of the WRU and the regional rugby supporter!

Chairman not owner and he'll be gone soon apparently, so somebody else will take over. Cardiff also owe him around about £7m. Hope he doesn't ask for it to be paid back.
Company accounts available here (will only cost you a quid);
http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/findCompanyInfo.shtml

he is the ultimate controller because he owns the majority of shares in cardiff rfc ltd which owns cardiff blues.

£7million is about the amount I would expect someone to pay in order to have complete control over decision making at the cardiff blues when they are not qualified to make those decisions.

lets be honest, if I had £200million I would be happy to pay £7milluon for the amount of influence that he has in welsh rugby.