The Scarlets management addressed its supporters on Wednesday night
The Scarlets are confident they have made a strong case to be a central part of the new three-club structure and believe it is possible to reach consensus over the next few weeks.
In a meeting at Parc y Scarlets on Wednesday night the Scarlets management team addressed the club’s supporters. This is a turbulent time for Welsh rugby with the Welsh Rugby Union looking to reduce the number of professional clubs from four to three, while it has also proposed a model of central control.
The Scarlets have been working hard behind the scenes to fight their corner and have decided to update their key stakeholders first before going public.
“The reality is this is where we are today,” said Scarlets executive chairman Simon Muderack.
“I do think it is the right decision at this point in time to go down from four to three from a financial perspective but also the player resources that we have. What we’ve done is kept our council externally. We aren’t taking anything for granted.
“We have certainly dug in and fought our corner using facts, figures, the rich history of the club and everything we have produced and contributed to Welsh rugby.
“We presented those facts very factually and very positively to the union.
“It is my belief that if those facts are looked upon honestly in any assessment then nobody could countenance a future for Welsh rugby without the Scarlets at the heart of it.”
The WRU wants one team based in Cardiff, one in the east and only one in the west, which leaves both the Ospreys and the Scarlets in a vulnerable position.
WRU chairman Richard Collier-Keywood is on record as saying he is confident they can reach consensus on the three teams by the end of the year but if they cannot, a long and drawn out tender process will begin in the new year.
Predictably this question was put to the Scarlets management.
“There is potentially only a few more weeks of this process left,” said Muderack.
“I think the WRU have been in the press saying ideally they would have a course of travel to identify the three this side of Christmas.
“That is predicated upon a consensual approach to reduce the number of clubs from four to three.
“That is a big assumption and a big if but I do believe that is possible.
“But it does require agreement not only from whatever club that may be whose position may change but also the other clubs moving forward in terms of what that overall structure looks like.
“So there’s a lot of work to go through over the next couple of weeks but that is underpinned by our work over the past couple of months.”
Muderack also revealed the stress this whole process has put on the club’s staff while they also praised the funding directors who have continued to plough money into the Scarlets along with the support of its fans and local politicians.
The Scarlets were inundated with detailed entries from supporters and stakeholders to its open book with 50,000+ words of heartfelt testimony – enough to fill a 200-page book. They also point to the fact they have produced 28% of all Wales internationals since 2003.
While the number of teams has driven more headlines, there is a debate over the amount of control the WRU should have in the new structure being had in the boardrooms.
“If I was to say we won’t do anything that changes the fabric of this club,” said Scarlets managing director Jon Daniels.
“Everything this club has stood for for 150 years, all the history and great days this club has had on the field – we won’t do anything that changes the club’s role in that process.
“We are open to better alignment and collaboration and if I’m honest we’ve craved more of it.
“We also want what’s best for Welsh rugby so we don’t want something that preserves the club but damages Welsh rugby.
“We believe passionately that in the best interest of Welsh rugby having a system where every stakeholder is respected and plays a part in the running of the organisation is a lot healthier than giving control to one individual or one body just because it makes life easier and removes friction.
“We started the process with the threat of two new teams with no connection to their history, community or identity.
“That was abhorrent to us and was sickening. That is not what Welsh rugby is about.
“Where we are now is a recognition that the history and identity of the club is relevant.
“The question of control over rugby? We won’t accept having no say or control over our team which represents you (the fans).
“We will not give that away but we are open to discussions about how that might work better.
“That extends all the way through to our academy as well.
“Having training centres with no connection to our identity and no connection to our villages and the communities we represent not only from a fan and commercial perspective but actually from a development perspective is wrong.
“Young players who start on their rugby journey in our patch, most of them if they want to go to a high level want to play for Scarlets.
“Yes, they want to play for Wales but playing for Scarlets is what drives them through their journey.
“Ray Gravell used to say his dream came through when he played for the Scarlets and it was a bonus when he played for Wales.”
Muderack went on to explain they were in the third round of negotiations with the WRU and the terms of the new structure are looking more favourable than they did a couple of months ago.
“Irrespective who takes over Cardiff we will go to three so by definition boundaries and geographical boundaries will be looked at,” he said.
“We don’t know what it looks like yet.
“In order to get consensus all of the three clubs need to mutually agree to the plan. You need three clubs who have similar responsibility and identical levels of funding.
“You should not see a super club emerge.
“The goal is to not go to a tender process, it is to come up with a solution before Christmas.
“In the latest proposal for the new PRA we are getting to a pretty reasonable position on how the debt is treated.
“It has been a massive burden with a huge cash flow burden. The money it has stripped out of the club has been awful.
“The latest proposal is a far kinder treatment of the debt and has seen the biggest improvement on the three rounds of negotiation.”