![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/0_JS392597997.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe huge call was made today at a Welsh Rugby Union board meeting held in Cardiff<\/p>\n
A general view of Cardiff Arms Park (Image: Huw Evans Picture Agency Ltd)<\/p>\n
The Welsh Rugby Union will enter a period of exclusive negotiation with Ospreys owners Y11 Sports & Media as its three-team solution comes one step closer.<\/p>\n
Y11 are majority shareholders of the Ospreys<\/a> and after a WRU board meeting today the governing body has decided they are the right choice for Cardiff<\/a>.<\/p>\n The WRU are in the process of reducing the number of professional clubs in Wales from four to three and Y11’s potential purchase of Cardiff is a way of achieving that.<\/p>\n JOIN OUR WALES RUGBY FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest news, analysis and much more<\/a><\/p>\n There will now be a period of exclusivity where the governing body will negotiate exclusively with Y11.<\/p>\n There would then be a potential to create what some people in the upper echelons of Welsh rugby have labelled a \u201csuper region\u201d.<\/p>\n What happens in reality remains unclear at this stage.<\/p>\n But this development is a significant step forward for the WRU in their quest to go down to three teams.<\/p>\n The other bidder was a consortium led by former Cardiff director Martyn Ryan which includes Rhino CEO Reg Clarke along with three prominent Hollywood producers.<\/p>\n WalesOnline understands this was a financially strong bid while they also had a compelling business plan which in the long-run could catapult Cardiff back into the elite tier of European club rugby.<\/p>\n A major part of their plan was to create a scripted TV series based in Cardiff.<\/p>\n But unless there is a major U-turn that will not happen.<\/p>\n Y11’s likely acquisition of Cardiff will go down like a lead balloon in many quarters.<\/p>\n Cardiff’s official supporters trust, CF10, have already gone public to say they will not welcome Y11’s as Cardiff’s owners while fans of the Ospreys will also be up in arms.<\/p>\n “The WRU board met for its January meeting today and considered the recommendation from the Executive Leadership Team on the sale of Cardiff Rugby,” read a WRU statement.<\/p>\n “The board reviewed in detail the final two bids and unanimously approved the proposal to move forward with a preferred bidder into an exclusivity period.<\/p>\n “Following this decision, the WRU has obligations to liaise with a number of stakeholders over the next few days.<\/p>\n “We will then discuss the decision with the two bidders and the management of Cardiff Rugby and we expect to be in a position to have completed this by next week.<\/p>\n “The WRU hopes to finalise the detailed negotiations with the preferred bidder and sign a binding agreement within a matter of weeks.”<\/p>\n Follow all of our channels to ensure you stay up to date with the latest Welsh rugby news. Sign up to our free daily newsletter here<\/a> and our WhatsApp channel here<\/a> for all the breaking news.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The huge call was made today at a Welsh Rugby Union board meeting held in Cardiff A general…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10579,26771,5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-379063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-cardiff-rugby","tag-ospreys","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379063","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=379063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}