Worcester Warriors Liquidated - Stark and Sobering

Time for The RFU's fit and proper person test.

In episode six of This is Wrexham, the emotional and uplifting documentary of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s purchase of Wrexham Football Club, the show focuses on the pairs’ desire for the club to once again own the Racecourse Ground. It was one of their biggest promises to the Wrexham community.

Julie Birrell, one of the Wrexham supporters who frequently appears over the season, struggled to hold back tears as she remembered when her beloved club was being ripped apart to satisfy the pockets of former owners Alex Hamilton and Mark Guterman. Choked up as she relived a traumatic time for the town.

The pair took over the club in March 2002, with the sole intention of making as much money as possible for themselves from the land on which the Racecourse Ground stands. Guterman in particular had a history of fast-tracking companies into liquidation and had been at the helm of Chester when they went into administration in 1999.

The Racecourse is historic, and the world’s oldest international football stadium. In 2002, it was bought from then-owners Marston’s Brewery for £300,000. Ownership of the stadium was immediately transferred over to Crucialmove, Hamilton’s company. Hamilton then paid another £300,000 via Guterman in 2003, cancelling the club’s 125-year lease agreement at the stadium and giving Wrexham 12 months to find a new ground to play in.

Whilst engrossed in this documentary of a Welsh football club rising from the ashes, the similarities between Wrexham and Worcester Warriors became suddenly all too clear.

What to say that hasn’t already been said? Who to blame that hasn’t already been blamed? What will actually change that needs changing?

Almost two months after the story of their financial position first broke, Worcester Warriors players and staff are to have their contracts terminated. In that time, Twitter’s rugby community has been flooded daily with messages of support and solidarity. From fans, to pundits, to clubs, to players themselves.

Toothless statements stood paradoxically parallel to a lack of communication from Worcester’s directors. The collective mood swung from negativity to positivity and back and forth. And now, it looks increasingly likely that this club, that has shown itself to be a vital cornerstone to so many people over the last few months, is to fade into extinction. Perhaps with Wasps soon to follow.

On 28 September 2018, a consortium led by Jed McCrory, a former director of Swindon Town agreed terms with the previous owners. Weeks later, McCrory announced his intention to leave, installing Morecambe FC owners Jason Whittingham and Colin Goldring as directors.

Bond Group Sixways, which became the parent company at the top of the entire group as McCrory departed, thus owning WRFC Trading, was incorporated with Whittingham as its sole director on 22 June 2018, a full three months before McCrory’s consortium had bought the club. No one has been willing or able to explain to the Guardian how this came to be. It seems the plan may have been for Whittingham, at least, to take over. - Michael Aylwin, The Guardian. ¹

Since then, Goldring and Whittingham have led Worcester to the brink of destruction. During their ownership, they’ve lawfully carved the club, surrendering leases, and creating 13 companies and transferring assets away from the club itself. Public body Sports England were even accused of aiding the asset stripping as they approved such transfers.

Just five months ago, Worcester Warriors had lifted the Premiership Cup after a nail-biting final against London Irish. Their first major trophy, and a sign of Worcester’s potential upside. A bright future perhaps in the making with the likes of Duhan van der Merwe, Fin Smith, and Ted Hill. Now, the club will likely cease to exist. Following it to the grave will be the emotional bond that so many fans and players felt to the team.

Many on Twitter are taking aim at the RFU and PRL for a variety of reasons. Namely their lack of an ownership test that allowed such a disingenuous pair to come into possession of a club; and for the lack of communication and support, both emotional and financial, that both RFU and PRL have transmitted to Worcester and its fans.

It feels slightly wrong to say there were any upsides to Wrexham’s former owners desecrating the club, but it was an influential case that eventually led to the Football League installing a "fit and proper person test". A test that is applied to directors and prospective directors of English football clubs to ensure those appointed are appropriate people to act as directors of football clubs.²

World Rugby or the RFU, has no such equivalent. World Rugby originally announced plans to introduce one, but as far as one can tell, it was never implemented.

The patrons of rugby union, both executives and pundits, have long held the attitude of ‘if you build it, they will come.’ A belief that all rugby needs to succeed and ‘grow the game’ - as everyone likes to say - is for rugby the product to be enjoyable. That it must change and reinvent itself. Be faster, smoother, slicker. The problem is on the pitch, not off it.

Perhaps, it is now other way around. The Gallagher Premiership, this season at least, has been wildly unpredictable and exciting. Pulsating to watch quite frankly. The Rugby Championship was fiercely chaotic and well worth the early rise.

But rugby has and always will be uniquely imperfect as a game. And whilst it’s been subject to constant tinkering year after year, its foundations, or lack of them, have grown ever more fragile. Unions and governing bodies have sat idly by as rugby and its clubs have descended ever further downwards.

Now, one club will soon dissolve. Will another follow? Forgive the longtermism here, but mismanagement has pervaded rugby union since its professionalisation, and Covid-19 exacerbated the suffering of a sport that desperately needs reshaping. Worcester’s impending demise shouldn’t be a kick in the teeth, it should be a full body beatdown. A nuclear warhead zeroing in on Twickenham.

1. Worcester Warriors: the inside story of a rugby club’s demise | Worcester | The Guardian

2. A guide to the Owners' and Directors' Test in English football - LawInSport