Carmarthenshire Council has welcomed the Scarlets‘ new deal with the Welsh Rugby Union, hailing two years of “security and stability” for professional rugby in west Wales.
The Llanelli club signed the Professional Rugby Agreement, known as PRA25, yesterday — the last of Wales’s four professional clubs to do so, ending a stand-off that had run for more than a year.
Council leader Cllr Linda Evans said: “We warmly welcome this agreement, which provides much-needed security and stability for professional rugby in west Wales over the next two years.”
“The Scarlets are not only a rugby club, but have been proven to be a major contributor to our economy, an important employer, a source of pride for communities across Carmarthenshire and west Wales and an ambassador for Welsh language, culture and values,” she said.
The council has its own evidence for that claim: a council report last year found the club pumps £17m a year into the Carmarthenshire economy.
The agreement establishes financial stability for all four men’s professional teams through to June 2028, according to the WRU.
But it runs only until the start of the 2028/29 season — at which point the governing body says its plan for a new three-club model will be implemented.
That leaves all four clubs signed up to a deal that ends with one of them gone — and no confirmation yet of which.
The signing closed a stand-off dating back to spring last year, when the Scarlets and Ospreys refused to sign the original agreement, seeking guarantees about their futures — prompting the WRU to announce it would move away from funding all four clubs evenly.
A U-turn followed in April, when new agreements were offered to both west Wales clubs — hailed by politicians in the region as “a massive victory,” though with warnings that the three-club threat had not gone away.
The Ospreys signed in June; the Scarlets held out a further five weeks.
The Llanelli club’s signature came days after accounts revealed a third straight £2m annual loss, as it navigates its 150th-anniversary season under the shadow of the WRU’s restructuring plans.
The council’s stake in the club’s future is direct in more ways than one: earlier this month it gave the Scarlets 15 more years to repay a £2.6m taxpayer loan.
Scarlets executive chairman Simon Muderack said the deal gave the club “certainty for the next two years” to “accelerate the significant progress already underway on and off the field.”
All four Welsh clubs will start the new United Rugby Championship season in September.
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