Rugby is a gladiatorial game – as Wales’s Six Nations match today against Ireland will surely prove. But even the greatest commentators in the sport, such as the late Eddie Butler and Cliff Morgan, would wince reading the script of Welsh rugby’s spiralling decline.
Wales has been more reliant on rugby to form the guardrails of national identity than almost any other country. Now the sport faces an ‘existential crisis’ in Wales. If anything those words, from the new head of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), are an understatement. They follow a BBC Wales investigation into the WRU last month which unearthed serious allegations of misogyny, sexism and racism inside the governing body. The former head of women’s rugby in Wales, Charlotte Wathan, has slammed the union’s ‘toxic culture’ of sexism, telling the BBC that she considered committing suicide after her experiences. She recalled a WRU male colleague joking in front of others that he wanted to ‘rape’ her. Another former employee of the WRU said that she wrote a manual for her husband in case she killed herself.
Now a national institution is on the brink of collapse. After the documentary aired in late January the union could only apologise. The union’s then chief executive Steve Phillips added that it investigated claims with proper procedures but had – stating the obvious – ‘fallen short’ of presenting Welsh rugby in the best light. The reputation, governance and culture of the WRU was in such disarray that calls for investigations and sackings dominated Welsh radio and television.
Mark Drakeford demanded ‘urgent and transparent action’; a chorus of outrage echoed by his cabinet ministers, while his predecessor as first minister Carwyn Jones said a Senedd inquiry should be launched. Sponsors of the WRU voiced grave concerns. The four Welsh rugby regions – Scarlets, Ospreys, Cardiff and the Dragons – wanted the entire governing board gone. To no avail. Steve Phillips insisted he was the right man for the job, backed by his chairman (and former Welsh international) Ieuan Evans.
Phillips’s dramatic scramble for self-preservation proved futile; he lasted days. But the fact he survived more than a matter of hours has only shown how the infamous WRU boys-in-blazer club operates. When Evans was asked if his personal credibility had been impacted by backing Phillips to stay in post, he said that he was a ‘very loyal’ person. At least Nigel Walker, the new acting chief executive, appeared on the Scrum V programme after Phillips’s resignation to express ‘remorse’ and admitted that the WRU’s credibility had collapsed amid the ‘furore’.
But the ‘furore’ is not over. Almost as shambolic as the union’s handling of allegations has been its haphazard public response to them. Earlier this week – in what was probably envisaged as a piece of strategic PR genius – the WRU banned choirs at the Principality Stadium from singing Tom Jones’s Delilah, whose lyrics depict the murder of a woman by her jealous partner. Talk about fiddling when Rome burns. Wales winger Louis Rees-Zammit, though not referencing the decision directly, wrote on Twitter shortly after the news was public: ‘All the things they need to do and they do that first…’
Whether the union can survive as an institution is uncertain. When Walker and Evans were hauled in front of a Senedd committee on Thursday, they were told by politicians that they were ‘in last chance saloon’. Their evidence was uncomfortable: the chief executive and chairman admitted their £100 million business was ‘in denial’ about sexism and misogyny, while acknowledging that there had been ‘warning signs’ about these issues. Things are so bad that Evans conceded that the WRU needed to demonstrate it was ‘a modern fit-for-purpose organisation.’
‘Governance doesn’t stop, it evolves,’ the chairman noted as he outlined his priorities last year. Events have forced an evolution to become a revolution. An external independent taskforce appointed by Evans begins its work next week investigating the allegations, and the chairman has unveiled welcome and long overdue proposals to modernise the union. If proposals are voted through by 75 per cent of national members at an extraordinary general meeting next month, at least five women will be on the WRU board with the chief executive or new independent chair expected to be female. Further reforms include increasing the number of independent directors as well as balancing the influence of professional and community game representatives.
If they get their way, Evans and Walker will likely restructure their way out of a job. But the WRU has rarely had capacity for implementing reform. Convincing rugby clubs nationally of the need for radical action at breakneck speed will be a challenge, the 75 per cent votes needed for a mandate are perhaps too high. Evans and Walker must now adopt a campaign mentality if they want Welsh rugby governance to survive after March.
And beyond these issues, the union must urgently work on other fronts. Director of the Scarlets and television executive Ron Jones, for example, has described the union’s relationship with regions as ‘abusive’ and said that clubs have been ‘bullied’ during discussions over their financial agreements. The union’s promotion of Welsh culture, most notably the language, is poor. On the day of Phillips’ resignation last weekend, for example, Evans didn’t even want to be interviewed in Welsh on the BBC. The Football Association of Wales, by contrast, has given an international profile to Cymraeg.
A reset and rebrand to the WRU may be too much to ask when it has been so reluctant to change. But Evans and Walker are now accountable to bring their entire organisation with them and act on discrimination allegations. The Welsh Labour government must also do far more to apply pressure on the WRU than it has already, considering that it provided public money to support the union during Covid and that Gower’s MP Tonia Antoniazzi raised sexism and misogyny claims at the WRU last year with ministers.
After two weeks of crises, the start of the Six Nations campaign offers a brief respite for the WRU. In spite of the advent of Welsh football on a global stage, rugby match days still give the country an unbridled opportunity to express its national pride. But whether the return of Warren Gatland as head coach can inspire Wales to triumph over Ireland today seems irrelevant. Welsh rugby is already badly beaten.
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