{"id":222924,"date":"2025-10-24T15:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222924\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T15:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:23:09","slug":"welsh-rugby-wru-to-keep-four-sides-before-cutting-to-three-by-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/222924\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh Rugby: WRU to keep four sides before cutting to three by 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Today&#8217;s announcement will do little to calm the often seething cauldron of Welsh rugby, particularly in west Wales.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The WRU said only one of the three future teams in Wales will be based in the west where both Ospreys (Swansea) and Scarlets (Llanelli) are based.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scarlets and Ospreys are on a previous funding agreement until 2027 &#8211; worth just \u00a34.5m a year &#8211; after refusing to sign the new participation agreement earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is still a hope within the governing body that the teams could merge but would open a tender process if they do not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That process even opens the unlikely prospect that one of those teams could apply for the licence based in Cardiff or east Wales.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The WRU, meanwhile, is a stakeholder in the URC &#8211; along with the four other national governing bodies &#8211; and would need support from the league to alter the number of regions competing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Surveys have shown a majority of Welsh rugby fans would like the WRU to approach the English clubs to see if there could be an Anglo-Welsh league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">WRU director of rugby and head of performance Dave Reddin has stated that option was not on the table and the WRU remains committed to the URC. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So while the present now has greater clarity, the longer-term future of Welsh rugby still remains uncertain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s announcement will do little to calm the often seething cauldron of Welsh rugby, particularly in west Wales.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-222924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}