London Irish have been given a deadline of 30 May to complete their takeover or risk being suspended from the Premiership next season. The Rugby Football Union has set the deadline for the deal to be approved. The club otherwise has to show evidence it has the financial means to continue through the 2023-24 season. Owner Mick Crossan is in protracted talks to sell the Exiles, with an American consortium in negotiations to buy the club. ... The RFU said the timescale had been set to "avoid a scenario where the club enters insolvency mid-season, with the corresponding and substantial impact that has on players, staff and fans, as well as on the remainder of the league". "This deadline was set to give enough time for the buyers to provide the information needed and for the transaction to complete," the RFU statement continued.

Suspension from the prem season 23/24

Dropped to the Championship 

It's more a box of fudge.

If only they kept to a cap of £5m, most clubs are spending closer to £10m and total expenditure of about £20m.

Some of that is funded by getting £10m from PRL for TV and commercial rights - it would be more, but they sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and CVC takes 20%.

They also get £2m from the RFU for the academy and releasing internationals.

And they seem to make about £3 to £5m from sponsors and match day income.

And about £3m from their sugar daddy, often as loans.

Do you know what competition incomes are like?

Sarries and Sale are in the final so presumably they earn more than Bristol or Gloucester.

Only what is in public accounts I have found, which can be obscure.

I am not sure how much more you get for being in a final, or how much more you pay in win bonuses.

Most professional sports have examples of financial issues and clubs struggling even the behemoth of football. Most clubs survive on the generosity of their backers rather than live within their means and at the top levels of football there always seems to be an investor willing to lose millions chasing the dream but lower down the leagues we have lost Bury and Macclesfield in recent seasons and Chester, Rushden and Diamonds, Maidstone and Aldershot in the recent past.  The list of Non-League clubs is probably a lot longer. If you listen to the highly recommended Price of Football podcast you will hear regularly of other EFL clubs who are teetering on the edge.  

Yorkshire Cricket are in a financial mess and probably aren't the only county. 

Rugby League clubs have constantly struggled - and may become worse when their reorganisation kicks in.  

What is marking Rugby Union out at the moment is it is the top clubs who are struggling and there are no signs of generous backers wanting to come in and takeover the ailing clubs. 

The clubs have spaffed the CVC investment and will be in a worse financial state in the future.  There are signs the next RFU/Premiership will be less generous or come with stronger strings (although if there are less Premierships splitting less money, will there be a noticeable difference?)

Covid should have led to a reset but it hasn't. The next chance of a reset is the next RFU/PRL deal - it should be an opportunity for financial common sense to kick in but I just don't see it happening as clubs are chasing the European dream and trying to compete with a French structure which is far more stable and richer because the game receives more from TV because French football is far less dominant than it is over here. 

Thanks Cam.that will make up a good chunk.

I used to work in F1 and the incomes were as you described plus championship incomes.

Basically the same in every sport with different levels of sugar Daddy.

Me too.  Fingers crossed.

Lol.

Charitably (I know...) I think it sort of makes sense. When Wasps and Worcester hit the skids after the season had started (never mind how long they had been skidding before that) and it hasn't happened for a while, the sport has got a - narrow - interest in accepting the assurances that it will all sort itself out, and giving longer for that to happen, because the ramifications of sides disappearing during the season are so serious for the staff/players of those clubs, and for the finances of everyone else. 

When a side hits the skids in the off-season, however, it does probably make more sense to force a quick conclusion because that gives players time to get around the other clubs while plans are being finalised, and before it damages a league that has already started.

From a sport administrators pov, you want potential collapses over and done with quicker in the closed season, and through gritted teeth have more interest in trying to spin them out during the season.

The lesson there is if you're a benevolent but failing team owner, try and make sure the wheels come off during the season...

I believe Wasps have officially paid all rugby creditors - as the bondholders do not fall into the RFU definition. And there was a claim they had agreed to the RFU's terms - which Atlas were not prepared to accept for Worcester.

Atlas's consortium of American money seems to have gone AWOL, as has London Irish's I thought it was meant to complete before the March payroll but didn't, and then again before the April run, and there is only so long the cheque can be in the post.

I am not sure how much due diligence you need to do, the club has no assets,, save for a place in the Premiership and the associated TV income, which requires a combined rent and payroll larger than the income.

I seriously wonder if there's anything that they can do though. The core structural financial problem is so enormous that there's basically three realistic options (and the fact that most people aren't going to like any of them doesn't mean that they're not still the three options):

- One, abolish all financial restraint and accept a Scottish Premiership scenario with a couple of clubs routinely streets ahead of everyone else, a couple going to the wall trying to keep up, and the last ones standing eventually joining the URC

- Two, punitive financial restraint which empties all the best players to the French leagues (the Super League/RFL approach, though replace French with Australian) - essentially go a long way to ensuring a level of mediocrity which won't collapse.

- Three, revisit the Cotton plan, and actually intentionally go for RFU controlled divisional rugby playing in the URC (which is basically ending up in the same place as option 1, but without the wild west aspect of getting there)

Anything else involves wishful thinking and liberal application of a magic wand. It's been the issue since 1995 - the set up we've got in the top tier is not the set up we can afford, and it never has been right since the first lunatics with big ideas got their cheque books out and decided to blow up English rugby union for their own ego and gratification in 1995. To borrow from another sport, 27 years of hurt. 

But of course all options that don't 'save these great clubs and get them playing' will be howled down because, as the kids say, reasons. 

Maybe the future of English professional rugby can't afford any of the current premiership clubs (or indeed any current English rugby club) never mind just reinstating those three. That should certainly be at least on the table. 

Time for a bit of iconoclastic thinking might be approaching at a rate of knots - never mind the community game finishing at the top of National 1, maybe it's time the community game finished at the top of the Premiership, and the current cartel teams became level 2 below a ringfenced regional pro tier....?

I'm not sure that's an adequate reason for kicking National League and lower  teams in the teeth just because they have been prudent in their financial management.

As has been said earlier, the French model of proof of financial stability before the season starts and monthly management accounts submission with appropriate points deduction for late delivery has to be the way forward.

You cannot keep teams afloat just because they're fashionable, what message does that send to clubs lower down the leagues? Who decides who is deserving of support? Certainly not new kids on the block like Worcester, Exeter, Sale and Newcastle.

The whole thing is a ducking mess and the current RFU management are not the ones to sort it out.

(I see that the FFR are setting up a third professional league - how do they do it?)

Enormous (geographically) country where football doesn't hold sway everywhere - essentially more of France looks like Gloucester, so there is scope for many more Gloucesters. 

France has below 50 fully professional football teams in a country of 67.75 million

England has 55.98 million people, supporting 92 fully professional premiership and football league clubs.. plus 21 out of 24 Conference clubs (level 5) are fully professional, and there are definitely fully professional clubs at level 6, because Kidderminster, who have just been promoted back to level 5, are fully pro. So well over double the number of professional French football clubs.

It boils down to England and France being very different countries with different circumstances (I know that sounds trite, but it is what it is) 

Away from a few glamour football clubs, French football and French rugby have different spheres of influence in the country, and on a lot of levels are fully, never mind broadly, comparable. In England just on attendances the Premiership (RU) is about par with a reasonable League 1 club that isn't setting the world on fire. Because football is king here it's easy to assume it looks like that everywhere. In enough of France, it doesn't. I don't think we can now (or probably ever again) compete with the French domestic rugby set-up - and I'm only in my early 40s. I'm more and more convinced that the future for English professional rugby, if we want to keep winning things, is smaller, centrally controlled, and *much* more protectionist.

With the French success in Football and Rugby we must be a bunch of lardy ar5es 

Meanwhile the American Teachers' Pension fund a.k.a. CVC just sit and wait to pounce

Which is why the time is fast approaching when some bright minds just might need to work out how the RFU can pull the plug on the Premiership first...

Or somebody pull the plug on the RFU .. more to the point

Probably why they are so against promotion/relegation in recent times. Have to keep the Yanks happy because its a concept too complicated for them.

Much as it pains me to say it, as the supporter of a club that was royally shafted (though not as badly as some) by the transition to professionalism, the RFU as they are now are a symptom, not the cause of the problems. Well they're the cause in that their abject surrender to putative club owners in 1995 set us on the path we've been on for the past nearly 30 years, but that involved virtually nobody that's still in a position of power now. 

Fran Cotton had the right idea - the clubs should have been stood up to and told they simply weren't part of the pro future. The Irish did it, remember the IRFU putting Garryowen firmly back in their box and telling them the future was the provinces...

You cannot save clubs who were run badly just because we like them, if they have no solid base, then like London Welsh or Rugby Lions, you start again at the bottom. You cannot keep rewarding failure, Wasps have been failing for over a decade are not likely to ever get out of that rut they find themselves in. Worcester were a different situation, but due to the administrators accepting an unsuitable bid(why that was legal who knows), they too at present have no means of being able to finance. Wasps have been careering towards oblivion right since the game went pro, big ambitions, but even when they were Champions, they still could not sustain themselves. When the game went pro some clubs had a look and said "no thanks" Orrell spring to mind as one, some like Wasps thought they could do it, but underestimated the task and over estimated their own ability to function as a business.

You look at their current plans to be back at the top and have a ground with over 20k seating in under 5 years, deluded, they couldn't make it work when they actually had a ground, how will they finance all of this? They will put other clubs financial position in jeopardy, just as much as Saracens did by over paying players and forcing up the expectations of players and fans.

Thats the issue the RFU do not have the money, they are near as dame it broke and have sold the only pot of gold to CVC, who at some stage will ramp up the repayments, because they are not in it for the good of the game, no matter what the window dressing is now ...that in turn will then break the RFU and the pro game... Leaving Sweeney to munch on a Pizza from his mates at Papa Johns, providing they have not pulled the rip cord on their gig.

Pretty sure Premiership clubs will focus on winning the league and playoffs, Europe would be nice but unlikely without busting the bank buying players. England, yes they will help players develop and take what ever compensation they get, but I bet it's not a focus. More than one DoR of Premiership teams have said that England were an obstacle in their way to make the club a success.

The RFU jumped into bed with Secure Trading to sponsor the 7s. Did not do "fit and proper" tests, just looked at the £ sign, took money and a few lunches. Got paid on year 1, missing year 2 to 5 , company goes to the wall owing the RFU 4 years money and England 7s go to the wall with it, hence why its now GB 7's . but that all got brushed under the carpet! Why, because they had to save face and could not let that out the bag and god forbid somebody at the RFU be found responsible for it and have to carry the can. They were even wearing ST on the front of the shirts 9 months post the company going belly up, Joke!

Bit like Wasps coming back in the Champ, what suits them is fine!

The RFU cannot afford another Prem club to go, they will prop this up any way they can.

Otherwise they will have a 10 team league with 9 home league games over a 32 week season. Because they won't let anybody from the Champ into the Prem Club. Take Jersey, good enough for England to train at, good enough for the RFU to throw money at to make sure its up to standard for England to spend weeks at training, but not good enough for the Prem, why because they dare not have an outsider in the Prem Club! 

Then you tell me what club in the world can keep afloat with 9 home league games as income, throw in a max of 4 for Europe and then a cup that nobody will pay full price to watch. The whole lot comes down like a pack of cards if Irish go I'd say!

The top players you describe almost all started at lower level rugby clubs where they were given a love of the game and where their development started. If the RFU have any money it should be distributed to these clubs and not given to clubs who have no idea how to operate on a sustainable basis.

If these Premiership clubs fold then that's probably for the best in the long-run. We might finally arrive at a financially stable sport at the top-level. 

Of course for there to be any credibility at the top level of our national game we will also need to kick out the perennial cheats who it seems are all set to "win" another title built on years and years of cheating.

Of course none of this will happen which is why quite frankly couldn't care less about the Premiership and confine my interest to the lower levels.  

Take them away from this professional environment and how many would progress to international level, you are deluded if you think the clubs could do this on their own. Clubs at local level is where they begin, minis and juniors like Leicester Lions have is the birth place and a vital part. Having identified the talent, then a step up to an academy, with dr experience in their teens in the Championship or National leagues, then those who make the cut could have a professional career. Like the game, it's a team effort, but to take away the academy environment would be a massive step backwards.

Technically, the IRFU could just argue they are just giving money to one of their member clubs (if London Irish have IRFU membership) and the RFU can't stop that.

The club is affiliated to the English RFU playing under their leagues and rules. World rugby rules state both nations Unions would have to agree, when the Scots mentioned running London Scottish, they were told where to go, so I think it's fair to say it's a no then. Apart from which the Irish RFU have no more money than the English do.

Old Elthamians appeared to be receiving money up to about half-way before the 2019/20 season, after which players started leaving.

Looking at the difference between the OEs side that visited us in January and the one we played at the School in the March, I believe most of the backs were the same, but only one member of the pack remained.

The Rugby Football Union will decide on Wednesday whether to grant London Irish an extra week to complete a takeover. Irish's owners have been in protracted talks with an American consortium over the sale of the Premiership side. A deadline of 30 May had been set by the RFU, otherwise the club risked suspension from the Premiership. The RFU agreed in principle to an extension on Tuesday, with one condition that the current ownership paid salaries due on Wednesday. But the situation was complicated on Tuesday evening at a hastily arranged players' meeting. There it emerged current owner Mick Crossan was offering to pay 50% of the salaries, rather than the full amount, with the rest due on completion of the takeover. The RFU's club finance viability working group met on Tuesday to discuss the situation, and will reconvene on Wednesday evening to make their recommendation to the RFU board. "It (the working group) noted the conditions set by the RFU had not been met and considered the application for an extension to the deadline," said a statement from the RFU. "It was agreed to defer the decision for 24 hours to establish if the club is able to honour the commitment it has made to staff that they will be paid for the month of May."

I suspect it was a week yesterday, but that has been revisited today because they weren't expecting the offer to pay 50% that apparently emerged today. And, in fairness, neither should they have been. 

For the second time in as many days, I'm with the RFU on this one - they seem to have made a good faith offer to extend by a week if the ink was as close to drying as was being said, and if everyone got paid 100% today. That that was being unpicked within a day of the extension being announced suggests a few things...

Unless a deal is done tonight, we will never know how close it ever was to happening.

But the mood music has not been good.

Apparently, the players asked the RFU to grant an extension, despite only getting half pay.

So new deadline of the 6th.

Taking them out of 'Warwickshire' and into 'North Midlands'. Yay!

I jest.

Still, I kinda thought they might end up cr@pping in that particular nest even before they finally, officially, admitted their failings, and went belly-up.

Nothing would suprise me. Nothing.

And what's even worse, one of the advisors they've appointed...... is a rugby league man! 

Well there go contested scrums and the mark.......

ETA: it appears he was already stepping down prior to the remarks, but it's hardly a ringing endorsement 

That's not good news for them, do you have a source for the info?

I enjoy both codes too.

Rimmer was not well thought of by RL fans, so to see him pop up here is, as you say, hardly a ringing endorsement.

I remember chatting to RL fans about the RFL and they hold them in as much contempt as RU fans hold the RFU, or in my case the WRU.

I'm gutted for the players and staff. Not sure what has been going on but the panto needed to come to a close.

The community schools work we carry out has all been done in connection with Irish. I really hope that their staff and players find alternative employment quickly.

Sad

Sad news for all involved. 

I tried to read the statement on the Irish website, but it just times out.

Updated link (don't know why, but initial one didn't work for me) -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/65819546" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/65819546

We need to find a better way of funding Clubs than relying on wealthy individuals. If that means cutting back and reducing salaries to bring them in line with income then so be it. We need some reality.

The reasons behind Irish’s downfall are different to that of Worcester and Wasps but no less chilling for the sport If one is misfortune and two is carelessness how on earth to describe the loss of a third Premiership club in the space of eight months? London Irish have finally followed Worcester and Wasps in being kicked out of the league, the financial mess that engulfs club rugby growing deeper. Again it is a tale of broken promises, of misplaced hope that salvation was round the corner. The figures alone are haunting. Upwards of £30m of debt, approximately 70 players unemployed. But the numbers do not speak of the devastation that accompanies the demise of a professional club. Nor the depressing inevitability of something that has been on the cards for months, writ large in recent weeks, or the powerlessness to stop it. The reasons behind Irish’s demise are different to that of Worcester and Wasps but no less chilling. Worcester’s problem was their co-owners; Wasps’ what can be described, with hindsight, as a ludicrous bond scheme. What will terrify those in the corridors of power in regards to Irish’s downfall is that it was due to a benefactor who had supported the club for the last decade but either could not or would not continue to do so. It is terrifying because here is an illustration of just how precarious it can be to live at the mercy of a wealthy owner initially willing to absorb losses. Take Bath as an example. Bruce Craig is said to have pumped a few more million into the club and Finn Russell’s arrival will be greeted with great fanfare. But what of Bath if Craig pulls the plug? The same goes for Bristol if Steve Lansdown decides it is time to get out. Likewise Tony Rowe at Exeter. Newcastle, on the other hand, have been criticised for slashing their budget and with it their ambition. At times the criticism is justified – their capitulation at home to Northampton in the penultimate round of the season was pathetic – but at least they are trying to live within their means. If the first draft of the next Professional Game Agreement does not spell out instructions as to how clubs must address their debt – exacerbated by Covid recovery loans – and that their central funding is conditional on it, then it should be ripped up and thrown in the bin. That the government has stepped in by appointing two independent advisers to assist with the restructuring of the domestic game only reiterates the gravity of the problem. At Irish, just as at Worcester and at Wasps, it is the human cost that is most sobering. The employees who are now out of work, who have given years, decades, to the club. In terms of the playing squad, the cream will be swiftly picked off – Tom Pearson has an array of suitors, so too Henry Arundell and the highly rated Chandler Cunningham-South. But what of the lesser-heralded players? Not all will find employment in what is already a crowded market. That the players and staff agreed to an extension to the Rugby Football Union’s deadline, primarily to ensure that they at least received some of May’s wages, is a damning indictment of the landscape. Irish’s owner, Mick Crossan, has his supporters after picking up the club a decade ago, for absorbing losses year on year, for relocating them to the capital and for continuing an upward trajectory. Much of that goodwill has been lost in recent weeks. As well as being given the ultimatum of only being paid 50% of May’s wages in order to keep the club afloat, staff and players were also paid April’s wages late. To put the burden on the players is to tug at the heartstrings. At the start of May, Irish’s director of rugby, Declan Kidney, reminded us it was a club with a 124-year history, with amateur roots in Sunbury in Surrey, also a club with a community feel. It is that sort of emotion that clouds judgment when it comes to the proposed takeover by a US consortium. Take it away and all that’s left is an investment that makes little business sense. Granted the Hazelwood training base is an impressive asset, but Irish do not own their stadium and have tens of millions of pounds of debt. Simon Massie-Taylor, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, has inherited a lot of problems of his predecessors’ making and has approached them with commendable intent, but it was naive in the extreme to remark of Irish’s prospective buyers that “they’re from across the pond and they’ve got interest in other sports so it is a positive news story”. He is not the first to be seduced by Uncle Sam but will now have to set about accelerating plans for a 10-team Premiership. The desperate shame is that Irish have made great strides on the pitch this season. Kidney deserves great credit for that; he is an experienced hand with an unflappable nature who will have protected his squad from the turmoil as best he could. There is a wealth of talent in the squad, too, and if the aim was to spend big on players such as Waisake Naholo, Adam Coleman, Sean O’Brien and Curtis Rona as the cohort of English talent that includes Pearson and Arundell emerged then it nearly worked. The fanbase in Brentford has also grown – more than 11,500 attended their final match of the season – but ultimately it is another moonshot to crash and burn. For its part the RFU has not known whether to stick or twist as the echoes with Worcester and Wasps have grown louder in recent weeks. On one hand there has been a desperation to avoid losing a third club from the Premiership in the space of eight months; on the other the union has to be firm after its chief executive, Bill Sweeney, was skewered by a parliamentary inquiry in November. Irish’s suspension will only heap the pressure on Sweeney, whose public appearances have dried up in recent months. He is under pressure over his planned governance reforms and the botched handling of the tackle height law change. There is also understood to be an anticipated £40m shortfall in the RFU’s income, alongside a further projected £10m loss due to inflationary costs, such as those related to overheads. The next Professional Game Agreement – which comes into force next year – may be Sweeney’s intended parting legacy but, in truth, he may not even get that far. If he does, then addressing the Championship – whose funding was slashed on his watch – must be among his priorities. It is absurd to think the Championship can come to the rescue for so many players out of work when it is not funded properly. If there is a glimmer of hope it is that cut-price year-long deals in the second tier or France, before the Premiership salary cap goes back up to £6.4m, may be the least bad option for many players. But that several clubs believe raising the salary cap again is madness, given the current climate, only goes to highlight the depth of the quagmire English rugby is in. As one well-placed source lamented: “What is the vision, can the RFU give us a concrete vision for what English rugby looks like?” Until it does, the worry is that London Irish will not be the third and last to fall. For now there are 10 green bottles sitting on the wall.

Couldn't see my mistake through the tears!

Cannot help but think it's time to cut The Premiership adrift. Financial support and all. 

Looks like bad news for the Wild Geese as well.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/06/london-irish-ejected-from-premiership-after-us-takeover-falls-through-rugby-union" rel="nofollow - London Irish ejected from Premiership after US takeover falls through

...There is also the matter of the club’s training headquarters in Sunbury-on-Thames that hosts the club’s amateur section. London Irish amateurs have a 15-year lease to play at the club’s Hazelwood complex but the land is owned by London Irish Holdings, which was one of the companies named in the winding up petition served to the club’s officials last week by HRMC.

If, and when, LIH goes into administration, the administrator takes over the lease.

They are charged to get maximum value, so would probably use any break clause to remove the sitting tenant.

But, if it is bought by the Jacksonville Jaguars as a training base, they may well decide they can co-exist with an amateur rugby club, after all they do not train after mid-January and will be on the road half of the Saturdays, and probably do not train the day before a home match orin the evenings anyway.

But then again, they might not.

The reality is that attendance income will not fund players salaries.  10 home games at Bath will just about pay Fin Russell’s wages

Indeed. Someday those running the game might finally realise the solution to the problem is (probably was by now) not how to fund the existing running costs of the clubs but how to dramatically reduce these to a level at which there is a possibility they can be funded.

Perhaps this latest twist will see players and their agents seek lower salaries - if they go to Europe, fine, there are only a finite number of clubs in elite rugby worldwide

Spot on. 

Unfortunately common sense doesn't have a chair at rugby's top table that was taken by CVC 

Shame they didn't offer those as part payment rather than cash. 
 

Thing is, that's questionable though isn't it? How many Championship clubs run at a profit? Or any level, this isn't a dig at Championship clubs specifically? 
 

We could simply say 'these 6 new franchises are the pro teams, everyone else is banned from paying players'

Or, and this is long past time it happened anyway - it should have come in as soon as there was a free gangway for clubs rather than players - have a mandatory ceiling for number of players on the books at any one club, tie down the players to their clubs on long-term contracts, stand in their way if a higher placed club comes in for them, and move to a proper transfer system with fees payable to selling clubs if a player is under contract. 

What we've got at the moment is a dogs dinner of trying to do the 'gentlemanly, not the rugby way to stand in a player's way thing', while also having free movement of clubs up and down divisions. Which is ludicrous. One or the other works, but not both.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/mick-crossan-pens-open-letter-as-london-irish-go-into-administration/" rel="nofollow - https://www.rugbypass.com/news/mick-crossan-pens-open-letter-as-london-irish-go-into-administration/

Personally, I don't trust that Jaguars owner. He already tried to eject the England football team from  matches in autumn at Wembley when he tried to buy it and I don't think he'd have let the FA use it as freely as was implied. I have my reasons for suspecting ulterior motives that are going to have a negative impact on rugby. 

I just hope whoever gets it does maintain London Irish Amateur's position there.

but there is a way back - LS and Richmond have trodden it, LW are treading it. no club is too big to be booted to the bottom. Don't want to win stupid prizes? Don't play silly games.

Otherwise where does it stop? Where was Orrell's help, or Moseley's? Waterloo? Manchester? Rugby Lions? London Welsh? London Scottish? West Hartlepool? Richmond? Coventry? Mounts Bay? Newbury?