Saudis in talks with four English clubs

Neil3030

https://twitter.com/crichardsontel/status/1752768379377619081

All very much in the early stages but four Saudi backed clubs + Bath and Bristol (sugar-daddy owned) would likely carry enough influence to get the salary cap scrapped.

And from there it's anyone's guess where things end up....

pickarooney

Puke

Podge_irl

Inevitable but **** gross

Billy_the_Kid

Feel sick reading that...hope the fans make their feelings known

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121702693#Comment_121702693

That ship sailed in England a long time ago. A Saudi move for rugby is obvious for them, how long before the WC is held there.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703717#Comment_121703717

The Saudis own sports franchises all over the world. It's likely going to inject some financial clout into English rugby.

Larbre34

They could do with it. I mean the Saudi money makes me puke too, but the Pro game is doomed in England if there isn't some sort of paradigm shift.

The question though for the Club die-hards will be, what condition will they be in when they've had their fun and get bored and move on.

phog

Saudi money in sport isn't a recent thing, it's been involved in horse racing for yonks, it has probably helped keep horse racing and breeding afloat here in Ireland.

They have invested in English soccer and fans accepted that money too as again it helps keep their sport alive

We'll see it in rugby too, bigger prize money on offer, higher TV rights money or whatever carrot is required to keep players playing at "my" club or in "my" competition.

Cookiemunster

Saudi money does not keep English football alive. They've the most popular and profitable league in the most popular sport in the world. They don't now and have never needed oil money to survive.

The Saudis (and Qatar, Abu Dhabi, etc) are in it for sports washing pusposes. This will be no different.

Saudi money would be pretty dangerous in rugby. These teams are already unsustainable, they'd spend even more with Saudi investment and any pullback would cause the whole thing to collapse.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707749#Comment_121707749

Horse racing. The honest, decent sport of the working man that all other sports should aspire to 🤣🤣

Rugby has fuked itself trying to greedily chase soccer numbers. Not trying to single it out as many sports including cycling which I love are at war between people who are happy with it as a niche sport and those who crave "expansion"

Rugby is a small sport in the grand scheme of things and there is nothing wrong with that. Any player who needs 50m a year can go learn to kick a soccer ball.

smurfjed

Rugby teams have existed in Saudi for at least 40 years, so it’s not new to them.

No one complains about the Dubai 7’s, so why is this any different ?

Billy_the_Kid

Pretty clear difference between that and buying a large stake in several English clubs.

JPCN1

Rugby in the UK outside on the national team struggles to attract fans. While Saudi money may help it would be very short term imo. I'd certainly hang up my scarf and go watch something else.

OldRio

It seems that the owners of Newcastle are in Saudi Arabia. Rumours circulating that a deal has been done.

I fear this is just the tip of the Iceberg, and an iceberg it certainly is.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788637#Comment_121788637

Suppose it makes the most sense given the ownership of NUFC

Pete_Cavan

What will Saudi money really do for English rugby? I mean, they would be able to sign a higher quality of overseas player but surely the problem in England is the failure to convert younger players into decent to high quality pros? They have a huge pick of players and every year their U20s have young lads who look like seasoned pro athletes, they just don't seem to be able to bring these guys through to senior level pros.

Now the GP only has 10 teams, they should be able to pad out those squads we reasonable standard players, plus the high quality imports on top. Instead, the standard in the GP seems pretty low and a couple of their teams who like to talk a good game seem get shown up in Champions Cup each year.

Money may allow them to compete with French and Japanese clubs for big name players but I'm not sure that's what they really need. They need to find a way to bring up the average level of their squad players. I mean, if the national team is still rolling out the likes of Cole and Care, what does it say about the lads behind them? Fixing their player production would probably also help to attract more fans, they've been down the route of multiple marquee players before and look where it brought them.

I think that the Saudi strategy for investment in GP rugby might be slightly different. Rugby doesn't need anywhere the level of investment that other sports the Gulf states have financed but it gives you a massively disproportionate level of positive exposure on the public school educated layer of England that tend to control the government, civil service, and financial sectors. Compared to spending hundreds of millions of pounds on big name footballers it might be a fairly cost effective play.

That said, I've been to Kingston Park. Once you can get there and back it's a good place to enjoy a beer and a game, but it's about the least corporate piece of the professional English rugby landscape. The Newcastle part is probably down to Semore Kurdi being British-Jordanian and having access to discuss finance possibilities.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121790257#Comment_121790257

Fundamentally it's a broken financial model.

The clubs overpaid for players , overpaid for facilities and other infrastructure (like convention centres and hotels for example) and they simply don't generate the revenue to support what they have today and frankly never will.

Saudi money might solve the problems in the bank accounts in the short term but it's not going to put more bums on seats each week-end and it's not going to stop the clubs over-spending on mediocre overseas players instead of trusting guys coming out of their academies.

To give an example - Bath are paying £1M/season to Finn Russell.

£1M for a guy that will play maybe a dozen games a season for them in front of around 13k people at most.

He's not worth that , nor is that level of salary realistic or sustainable given the actual turn-over of the clubs in the UK.

Unless the Saudis have very strict rules on what the money can be used for - which is highly unlikely, the English clubs will just go on a spending spree for a few years running their game at a massive loss only to collapse in a heap when the Saudis get bored and move on.

There is zero chance that those clubs would use that money to set themselves up for long-term success.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792331#Comment_121792331

£1M for a guy that will play maybe a dozen games a season for them in front of around 13k people at most.

just as an aside, Russell has played 14 games for bath already this season, putting in 75 mins+ in every game bar 1.

Russell will probably end up playing about 21-22 games for bath this season, putting in about 1600 minutes.

whether or not that's value for money is yet to be seen, but they will get every drop they can from him, and should they get to a premiership final, it will be very much down to his performances at 10.

edit: Ravouvou with bristol is probably a better example of wastage. Id imagine not on anything near Russells wedge but probably somewhere in the region of £350,000.. but has just played 175 mins so far this season with bristol.

Dubinusa

I know rugby is a minor sport. But I believe the pay scale is very low for lads who put their bodies on the line. I get that the game is not growing and funds are limited but. I wouldn't begrudge any player getting a good wage.

pickarooney

Just saw the wage bill for Barcelona FC is 680 million for the year. I think you could literally fund every professional rugby club in the world with that and have change for a choc-ice.

Neil3030

Couple of people suggesting the Saudis might eventually 'get bored' and move on...

Has that actually ever happened in any case of sportswashing?

I recall people predicting similar when ADUG took over Man City nearly 20 years ago....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792564#Comment_121792564

I presume he meant 13 home games in front of 13k supporters paying Bath X amount for tickets?

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792985#Comment_121792985

well the recs capacity is about 14K... so 13K is practically full capacity.

the days of equating player budgets to ticket sales are long gone.

Sponsorship, TV deals, and in the case of the premiership, sugar daddy investment, are much more significant these days.

average attendances across the leagues are very similar for Super rugby, premiership (13k each) and Top 14 (14k). URC lags behind at about 9.5K

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121792953#Comment_121792953

Getting bored is probably the wrong term but it's an investment for them and if they feel they aren't getting the expected return on investment (which isn't financial) they would pull the plug pretty quickly.

We all know they aren't doing it for the love of the game. If English rugby continues to be a basketcase, they may decide that pumping money in damages their image rather than improving it.

Burkie1203

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121794149#Comment_121794149

Is English rugby image so bad its gonna be accused of ruining the image of a homophobic and misogynistic country that chops peoples hands off......

handlemaster

Should enought them to invest in Irish teams bring on a few new stadiums would be nice

pickarooney

What has owning all those football teams got them apart from a glorified conkers game between despots?

Podge_irl

Pretty guaranteed they will be pushing towards abolishing the salary cap if they get involved in any Premiership team.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121793214#Comment_121793214

Well yes.. I meant home games but the fundamental point is that the Premiership clubs spend more than they make, even if you excluded their debt maintenance.

They run their current accounts at a loss and no amount of sugar daddies or even Sugar Sheiks will change that in fact they'll make it worse.

The model they use just isn't sustainable without someone being willing to eat the losses permanently.

And as we saw with Wasps, Worchester and Irish as soon as that funny money stops, they are finished in very short order.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121795035#Comment_121795035

Fully agreed, sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you, just pointing out that Russell may not be the best example of funds being wasted on the marquee player.

The English league whole structure is broken and built on a foundation of sand. It's not bums on seats though that determine the budget, it's the TV deals, club sponsorship, extra circular income from hotels etc. I think they realise that selling that 1/4 share to CVC was a disastrous deal as well.

At least in new Zealand the clubs (franchises) have to play under licence to the NZRU, so ultimately NZRU have control over budgets to a high degree.

Neil3030

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121794149#Comment_121794149

Indeed, they are motivated by neither love of the game nor a (immediate) cash return.

But are there any cases where they have pulled the plug on any sportswashing exercise?

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121703717#Comment_121703717

No more enjoying a pint with a rugby game if the WC is in Riyadh.