WRU: Reddin insists cut to three teams is happening, blaming ‘brutal economics’

The man driving Welsh rugby’s cut to three professional men’s teams says it is going ahead, leaving the Ospreys still facing a fight for their future.

The Scarlets are on the other side of that fight, with the two west Wales regions set to compete for a single licence from the 2028/29 season.

Dave Reddin, the Welsh Rugby Union’s director of rugby, said the governing body would not be knocked off course by the backlash. It was his first interview since March.

He was speaking to BBC Scrum V at half-time of Wales women’s 50-19 win over South Africa on Friday night. He acknowledged the hurt but gave no ground.

He said: “I understand the pain with it, but we’ve got to fix it and this is the way forward. We’re really committed to it.”

The union confirmed in July that Cardiff and the Dragons will be offered two of the three licences, with one team each in the capital, the east and the west.

Reddin’s message is one the union has repeated all year. It doubled down on three teams after April’s extraordinary general meeting, while leaving every question over who would go unanswered.

Eight days later the Cardiff sale collapsed, and the Ospreys and Scarlets were offered new funding deals. Supporters of both clubs hailed it as a massive victory.

Even then, chief executive Abi Tierney said the union remained “undeterred from our ambition to move to three professional sides”.

Rugby summit to put the Ospreys, Scarlets, Cardiff and Dragons in one room

What comes next, Reddin said, is a rugby summit after Wales’ November internationals. It would bring the boards and executives of all four professional clubs together with independent figures and the WRU.

He was frank about why it is needed. “One of the things we’ve suffered from probably to this point is a distrust of information,” he said.

His answer is to get everyone in the room to “all face the facts together”. That would be the starting point for negotiations on “how we get down to reducing the number of clubs”.

That distrust has a paper trail in the west. Scarlets managing director Jon Daniels demanded in August that the union publish the evidence behind cutting a team at all.

Swansea Council has resumed its High Court challenge against the union. It says the data behind the original consultation has never been handed over.

Gwyn Williams, the Plaid Cymru MS for Gŵyr Abertawe, has written to the union’s interim chair. He wants board minutes showing whether Cardiff-linked members sat out the licence votes.

Reddin insisted nobody in the professional game believes standing still is an option. “Everyone recognises decisions are tough,” he said. “I think we’ve just got to get a bit more grown up about the conversations.”

The process to set the framework for the final decision begins in December and is due to finish before the end of the 2026/27 season. A merger is one of the five ways the saga could end, but both clubs have so far rejected the idea.

WRU already funds half the men’s clubs’ turnover, Reddin says

Reddin’s case rests on money. He said the union already subsidises the men’s professional clubs to about half of their turnover, which he described as more than most in the world.

He said stretching that across four teams, while also investing in the men’s pathway, was “impossible with the amount of money we’ve got”.

He argued that adding teams would not solve anything: “We can have as many teams as we want, but they won’t be competitive teams. That’s the reality.”

He called it “the brutal economics of it all”. He said the current leadership had inherited problems “backing up for 10 or so years”.

Reddin compared Welsh rugby to a beautiful old house in need of renovation, and said money for young players should have gone in long ago: “We’ve had generations of top Wales players that have carried us through. We don’t have them anymore so we’ve got to do things differently.”

It is the argument Tierney made in April, when she said the cut was needed “for both financial and performance reasons” so the union could invest in its pathway.

That pathway overhaul has already stalled once. The union shelved its takeover of the academies at all four clubs in August, saying it could not afford it this financial year.

The takeover is part of a £28m, five-year pledge the union set out last November. It covers areas from men’s player development to the women’s elite programme.

Resignation calls from Jonathan Davies fail to shift the plan

The union’s leadership has had a bruising summer. In August, Wales dual-code great Jonathan Davies became the most high-profile voice calling for the whole board to go.

That would take in chief executive Abi Tierney, but not Reddin, who does not sit on the board.

The board refused to stand down and restated that the three-club decision stands.

In Swansea, Ospreys head coach Mark Jones said this week that his players and staff “need the support now more than ever” while the wait goes on.

Women’s rugby not to blame for men’s cut, says Reddin

Reddin also dismissed claims on social media that money spent on the women’s game is behind the cut.

He backed WRU head of women’s rugby Nadine Griffiths. This week she described those claims as “embarrassing” and said the women’s game had in fact made money for the union.

Reddin was blunt: “The decision on the men’s game is not affected by the amount of money we’re spending on the women’s game.”

He called the women’s game “the biggest growth opportunity in rugby”, adding that the union would be “silly not to take advantage”.

The union has run a professional women’s programme since the start of 2022 and now has more than 40 contracted players.

Reddin confirmed it has put in an expression of interest for two Welsh sides in England’s Premiership Women’s Rugby, entered as a Celtic Challenge block. He said contracts had been designed to bring as many Welsh players home as possible.