WRU wants break from Covid loan interest payments

The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) has asked Welsh ministers for three years of "breathing space" on interest payments from an £18m Covid recovery loan.

Its chair said some of the changes the organisation is making after a damning independent report into its culture could face cuts without it.

Richard Collier-Keywood and new WRU chief executive Abi Tierney were appearing before a Senedd committee.

The Welsh government provided the loan on commercial terms to the union in 2022, which it passed on to the four professional sides.

Mr Collier-Keywood told the Senedd's Culture and Sport Committee: "We have asked the Welsh government to reconsider its position in relation to those loans.

"The rationale for that is that we think we need a little bit of breathing space to get this new strategy in place, to get new income streams and to get the benefit of some of the commercial expertise which we've now got round the board table to deliver a better financial outcome for the WRU.

"But it's really hard to do that instantly.

"The only way you can do that it by cutting costs in an organisation, and I think it would be a great shame to cut into some of the good things that are currently being done by the WRU.

"So we have asked for some breathing space in relation to the Welsh government loans and they have said they will go away and think about that."

Mr Collier-Keywood said that when the loan was agreed it had interest payments of 2.25% above the Bank of England base rate of 0.5%.

But rising interest rates mean now the payment is 3.25% over a base of 5.25%, a total of 8.5%.

He said the request for help had been made to Deputy Minister for Sport Dawn Bowden in a meeting last Thursday.

Conservative MS Tom Giffard asked if the WRU was looking for the government to take the 3.25% "bump-up" off the loan.

Mr Collier-Keywood said he thought there were a number of things that could be done, and also cited more favourable terms in UK government loans for clubs in England.

He said that loan repayments were having a "very severe" effect on the four professional sides - Ospreys, Cardiff, Scarlets and Dragons - with £2m a year being spent on repayments and interest.

"If we do not get that breathing space we are going to a Plan B as yet undefined," he said, and added that cutting the number of sides was not without its own issues.

"What we're really asking for is that bit of breathing space for three years so we can finance things as people would want them financed."

The Welsh government has been asked to comment.

Earlier in the hearing Mr Collier-Keywood said that the vast majority of recommendations from the independent report into the WRU's culture would be completed by the end of 2024, and that another independent review would take place in spring 2025.

Ms Tierney, who is only 13 days into her role, said she had been "struck by a real determination to turn things round and build for the future."