Ring-fence and cut wage bills to attract state aid

During the week, Premiership Rugby, issued a statement confirming that they had met with Oliver Dowden, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to seek a rescue package to help the clubs survive. Since then, in a concerted PR effort, a number of clubs have gone public on how dire the situation is.

- COLIN BOAG

With little likelihood of crowds returning for at least another six months, Worcester’s owners issued a stark statement, Peter Toms, Leicester Tigers’ chairman, said he expected clubs would go out of business, Exeter chipped in, and Lance Bradley, Gloucester’s chief executive said that no fans for a further six months would be devastating.

Bradley had previously said Gloucester were in better shape than some of their rivals – they own their ground, and they have a decent level of support – so how bad must things be for some of the others?

As a huge fan of the Premiership, I struggle to imagine life without it, so I desperately hope a support package can be put together, but it needs to be on commercial terms. First, it has to be a loan and not a hand-out, because it’s our – the tax-payers’ – money that the government is doling out, and it needs to be on commercial terms. So any loan has to come with conditions.

The first of those is that there has to be a realistic expectation it will be paid back – it might take a while, and the interest rates might be very low or even zero, but eventually we need to get our money back.