The man about to take charge of the Welsh Rugby Union’s board says he will review the plan that leaves either the Ospreys or the Scarlets without a professional future.
Asked whether he would be prepared to change course on the cut to three professional clubs, Lyndon Faulkner said yes, adding: “That’s on anything I see.”
The businessman and former Pontypool player was named the union’s new chair earlier this month. He is in the office from 2 November and officially takes over at the union’s AGM on 22 November.
He was at St Helen’s on Saturday night to watch the Ospreys’ first game at their new home.
Speaking to reporters at Cardiff Arms Park earlier that day, he said the future number of professional clubs is on his list of priorities. So are the union’s finances, which he calls “worrying”.
Lyndon Faulkner says he would not have taken the WRU job as a ‘yes man’
Faulkner says talk that the job came on condition he stayed quiet on the cut to three clubs is “absolutely incorrect”.
He would not have taken it on those terms, or if he was expected to be a yes man, he said. “That’s not me.”
His plan is to look at everything, “challenge it, probe it”, he says. He is already asking for information, including on the finances, and says none of it is being filtered or held back.
Faulkner says he may not be ‘the man for the job’ if the WRU board overrules him
He will chair the board but will not run the union day to day, so the final decisions are not his alone.
He says it would be “foolish” to appoint him for his experience and then ignore what he says. On a minor point, he says, the board could agree to disagree.
On something bigger, he was blunt: “If it’s something that’s relevant and they don’t agree then probably I’m not the man for the job.”
What Faulkner’s review means for the Ospreys and Scarlets’ fight for one licence
Cardiff and the Dragons have already been handed two of the three licences from the 2028/29 season. That leaves the Ospreys and Scarlets to fight for the last one, with the union due to decide by the end of June 2027.
The review could go either way. Faulkner says he will not shy away from tough decisions to keep people happy, because “you are not going to please everybody all the time”.
He is glad the union rescued Cardiff, saying he “cannot imagine Welsh rugby without a Cardiff in it”.
Asked whether the same could be said of the Ospreys or the Scarlets, he said the review had to come first. He says he is “empathetic” and understands “the emotions that it drives”.
He does not want his review to drag the decision out, admitting it has already gone on too long.
An Anglo-Welsh league appeals to him, having played in one with Pontypool. But he points out that the union has an agreement for four Welsh teams in the United Rugby Championship.
New WRU chair calls the union’s £18.1m loss ‘worrying’
He did not know the £18.1m loss before tax was coming until it was raised at an internal meeting shortly before the accounts came out. The previous figures he had seen were not as bad, he said.
Fixing the business side comes first, he says, because without it the union cannot invest where it needs to. He will work with the executive team on cutting costs and bringing in more money.
He put some of the pressure down to costs hitting almost every company in the UK, from utility bills and the minimum wage to national insurance and food.
Faulkner hits back at the WRU’s critics ‘from the side of the ring’
Swansea Council leader Rob Stewart called again at the weekend for a new board and chief executive at the union.
GoCompare founder Hayley Parsons wants the whole board to go. She also wants chief executive Abi Tierney to step down.
Faulkner says the “noise” is a distraction for the players, with Wales facing three big games next month.
He says too many critics are shouting “from the side of the ring” instead of getting into the fight. By taking the job, which he says he does not need, he is putting his own reputation on the line.
Lyndon Faulkner: from Pontypool in the 1980s to the Xbox launch
Faulkner, 66, grew up on a Newport council estate and is the nephew of Charlie Faulkner, a member of Pontypool’s famous front row who played for Wales and the Lions.
Lyndon played in the centre for Pontypool in the 1980s, before a knee injury ended his playing career.
Trained as an electrical engineer, he championed the compact disc at Nimbus, then worked on launches including the Xbox and Microsoft Office. His son now plays as a flanker in the Cardiff pathway.
He plans to visit all four professional clubs, many of them run by former players he knows, but says he will be going “not as a friend, but as the chair of the WRU”.
The union’s “State of the Game” summit with all four clubs follows in early December.
Discover more from Swansea Bay News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
