{"id":428359,"date":"2026-01-21T19:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/428359\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:38:08","slug":"fans-and-welsh-rugby-chiefs-at-odds-over-plan-to-cut-one-of-four-professional-sides-welsh-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/428359\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans and Welsh rugby chiefs at odds over plan to cut one of four professional sides | Welsh Rugby Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard Collier-Keywood, the embattled chair of the Welsh Rugby Union<\/a>, has insisted he has the support of fans and players in Wales as the WRU attempts to drive through radical plans to cut one of the four professional sides.<\/p>\n

Giving evidence before the House of Commons Welsh affairs select committee, Collier-Keywood \u2013 who is facing the threat of a vote of no confidence in his leadership \u2013 said he believed \u201cthe rugby system was essentially broken\u201d in Wales before he took over and there was widespread acknowledgment that it needed to change.<\/p>\n

His evidence came on a day when a quartet of Welsh fan representatives testified before that same select committee that he was wrong.<\/p>\n

Iwan Griffiths, from the Scarlets Supporters Trust, said a poll of their members had revealed that 90% were against the WRU\u2019s proposals. Daniel Hallett, from the Dragons Supporters\u2019 Club, said their own survey had shown \u201cthere is no appetite for a potential merger, there is no appetite for jumping ship to another team who have been historic rivals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise change is painful and we went into this understanding that this would be very painful for groups of supporters,\u201d Collier-Keywood said. \u201cBut unfortunately the rugby system was broken, the pathways were broken, and we have announced an investment plan of \u00a328m over five years to fix that problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plan proposes scrapping the Ospreys, given the region\u2019s owners are the WRU\u2019s preferred bidder for Cardiff, which the union has owned since the club went into administration.<\/p>\n

Collier-Keywood and the WRU chief executive, Abi Tierney, believed the situation they had inherited was unsustainable because the WRU was in special financial measures. That meant the most pressing issue they faced was the need to refinance the WRU\u2019s debts.<\/p>\n

To do so, they needed to negotiate a new Professional Rugby Agreement, but the process had stalled because two regions, Scarlets and Ospreys, wanted more assurances over how the WRU planned to finance Cardiff. \u201cWe were going to fail,\u201d Tierney said. \u201cSometimes one of the issues you face in leadership is that keeping going along the same path isn\u2019t the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collier-Keywood argued that Welsh rugby is \u201cstarved of resources\u201d, with the four teams subsisting on operational budgets that are only around half the size of some of their rivals in other countries.<\/p>\n

Cutting one of the four regions is \u201cthe affordable way forward, and it is also the way forward that will allow our rugby to improve\u201d, he claimed. \u201cWhen we sat down as a board and looked at the rugby players we had in the system who were Welsh, we didn\u2019t feel we had enough for four teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

The existing four had been employing \u201caround 30 non-Welsh players\u201d, which he described as \u201cfrankly a waste of money in the longer term\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tierney also denied that the WRU was facing any real threat of an Extraordinary General Meeting, even after Central Glamorgan Rugby Union recently wrote to clubs asking for their support holding a vote of no confidence in Collier-Keywood. \u201cWe haven\u2019t received anything from the community clubs,\u201d Tierney said, \u201cand we haven\u2019t yet had any call for an EGM.\u201d<\/p>\n

Central Glamorgan would need the support of around 30 of the 300 clubs in Wales to force an EGM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Collier-Keywood, the embattled chair of the Welsh Rugby Union, has insisted he has the support of fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-428359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}