Loose Pass: Responsibility of all kinds

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with responsibility of all kinds…

Fiscal responsibility

There is some significant irony that the team at the top of the Premiership table is also the one balancing its books in a decidedly healthy way at the moment.

Of the 13 Premiership clubs – the current 12 plus London Irish – filing their accounts with Companies House for audit from 2018, Exeter and Exeter alone turned a small profit. That London Irish copped a big loss on the back of relegtion is understandable, as is Bristol‘s increased spend on their return to the Premiership. But looking at the rest of the figures makes for grim reading.

Every club increased its losses on the year before (bar… you guessed it) while even the financial behemoth of Wasps, with a GBP33m turnover, lost 10 of those millions.

It lends an increased air of logic to the acceptance of the clubs to take the money on offer from CVC, with each receiving a GBP 13.5m up front payment (you’d hope some would be used to reduce debt and make things manageable but we are sceptical).

But weighed up against the 27 per cent of profit CVC will take as a result of its newly-acquired stake in the top flight and observers have to be worried.

Problem is, the concepts are already contradicting themselves. CVC see the Premiership as a business acquisition, just as they did Formula One (which suffered unimaginably from CVC’s ownership) and will surely be looking for a return on its investment, just as any investing business would. Presumably, it will see its investment in the Premiership as an investment in a product, which normally has a product cycle – with the product both booming and waning, which will be nice for those involved in the boom, but thoroughly miserable for all when the product begins to wane – not least those clubs who struggled during the boom time and do not invest wisely.

Saracens‘ owner Nigel Wray said as news of the dismal financial figures broke: “I have often said that you cannot look upon a sports club as merely a profit and loss account as you might any other company. Sport is not like that: there is not much point in having a great profit and being 11th.”

The problem is, one team is managing to have a decent profit and finish first an awful lot at the moment and while it clearly has assets – such as its own ground – that others do not, the book-balancing act and infrastructure development at Exeter has thus far been superb.

“We are building a major and, I hope one day, a global brand that will stand for good things and mean a lot to tens of thousands of people,” continued Wray, in awe-inspiring ignorance of the fact that while rugby is growing, its clubs cannot continue to simply lose money and hope to sustain success and existence, and also of the fact that it is highly unlikely Sarries will be rivalling Real Madrid for global brand dominance any time soon.

“The CVC deal will be absolutely transformational for the club game and, indeed, the game as a whole,” concluded Wray, but we beg to differ. Good financial governance and business models oriented around infrastructure and sustainability will stand for good things and mean a lot to tens of thousands of people. Mounting debts crumbling in the face of unforeseen events and avaricious rights owners will mean only misery for everyone.

The Premiership clubs have an opportunity now to construct a long-term model based around turning profits for reinvestment and balancing books. Premiership Rugby needs to be the body constructing that. There’s only so many times we can look at the annual money-losing parade and shrug it off by saying: “yeah, but that’s the cost of sport these days…”

Collective responsibility

One thing Leicester have always been renowned for is their collective. From the great pack of the Johnson era, to the faithful of Welford Road’s ability to generate a pulsating atmosphere, it was the collective that made that pack of East Midland tigers so dangerous.

This coming Friday could be an end. There’s no little irony that coaching the team now standing between Leicester and relegation is one of the men most historically-linked with that collective. Dean Richards’ Newcastle, brimming over with new-found confidence, host a Leicester team looking awfully short of collective.

Not in the soundbites. They remain honest, Leicester to the last. ‘Not good enough.’ ‘Got to be better.’ ‘Need to work harder.’

Yet something has been missing for a long time from Leicester. The defeat to Exeter had all the hallmarks of a doomed team: inexplicable defensive errors, brief surges of hope, a pointless red card borne of frustration.

There is no collective on the team. Nor is there any inspiration – no indestructible figurehead in the Johnson or Richards mould, no fearless leader to whip the troops up into belligerent frenzy.

So while the soundbites emerge of togetherness and willingness to graft, the big task for someone on that Leicester team on Friday night is to rise up and help his team-mates find their collective once more. Or the Premiership could lose one of its most marketable assets – and what would the cost to CVC be of that?

Loose Pass compiled by Lawrence Nolan