WRU: Swansea Senedd member demands proof Cardiff-linked board members sat out licence votes

A Swansea Senedd member has demanded the Welsh Rugby Union prove that board members with links to Cardiff removed themselves from the decisions that left the Ospreys and Scarlets fighting for one licence.

Gwyn Williams, elected for Plaid Cymru in Gŵyr Abertawe in May, has written to the union’s interim chair John Manders asking for board minutes and papers, “not just assurances that processes were conducted in a fair manner”.

The union confirmed in July that Cardiff and the Dragons would be offered two of the three licences in its three-team future, leaving the two west Wales regions to contest the third.

The WRU also owns Cardiff Rugby, having taken the club over last year, and Mr Williams says that is the heart of the problem.

“The WRU owns Cardiff. It has a direct financial stake in which regions survive. Wales deserves to know whether any of them declared that interest and left the room, or whether they simply voted.”

His letter follows an ITV Wales interview in which, he says, chief executive Abi Tierney told viewers that board members connected to Cardiff would remove themselves “when relevant decisions were taken”. That promise, Mr Williams says, now needs to be proven.

“This shouldn’t be something difficult for a £100m organisation like the WRU to provide. It’s the difference between a fair and official process and a false one,” he said.

What the letter claims

The letter sets out a series of claims about how the decision was reached. It says the union’s own consultants, Keystone, were not instructed until after the October 2025 decision to cut from four regions to three, and did not report to the board until 22 July this year, the day Mr Williams says the licence decision was made.

It claims the evidence behind the restructure remains unpublished, despite Ms Tierney telling ITV it had been released before conceding on air that it had not.

It points to what Mr Williams calls an accounts discrepancy: that the union told Swansea Council’s lawyers in spring that no licence decisions had been taken, while its own accounts, signed the previous November, already modelled Cardiff operating in a three-region structure. Swansea Council has resumed its High Court challenge, saying assurances given while its case was paused were broken.

And it names three current board members, including Mr Manders himself, as having what the letter describes as documented longstanding connections to Cardiff Rugby. The letter also claims the voting rules of the body overseeing the restructure were changed three months before the licence decision.

Four demands

Mr Williams is asking Mr Manders to disclose the Keystone report and the board paper behind the July decision; to confirm what evidence the union relied on in October 2025; to explain how the position given to Swansea Council squares with its signed accounts; and to confirm from the board’s own minutes which Cardiff-connected members declared an interest and stood aside from each vote.

“If the WRU has nothing to hide, the minutes will show it in black and white,” he said. “If they can’t produce that evidence, people across the Ospreys and Scarlets regions are entitled to conclude this process was never fair to begin with.”

The union’s handling of the west Wales question has already drawn a resignation call from Swansea’s council leader over a leaked recording, and demands for answers from Carmarthenshire Council.

The WRU has previously said it is committed to progressing “in a collaborative way, whilst not underestimating the considerable challenges ahead”. The licensing process is due to begin in December, with a decision on the west Wales licence expected by the end of the season.