Friday 11 July 2014

Brace yourselves

Update

The collapse of talks between the WRU and the four regions means that each of the regions is facing a shortfall of around £1.6 million next season, while money from the new European competitions will not begin to flow until October.

The BBC offers a very confused take on the latest developments here, while the Guardian provides a more straight forward account here.

Judging from comments on Scarlet Fever, the Scarlets supporters' forum, Roger Lewis and Dai Pickering, chief executive and chairman of the WRU respectively, would be well advised to stay away from Llanelli for the foreseeable future.

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The Scarlets were supposed to have filed their accounts for the year ending 30 June 2013 by the end of March. They still have not done so.

The Western Mail is not alone in wondering what is going on. Back in April the paper was told that the accounts would be filed after the May board meeting. That came and went.

Then a couple of days ago it was told:

“The accounts have not been filed because it was agreed at the Scarlets board meeting in May that we should not file accounts until we could confirm WRU agreement and therefore the forward revenue of the business with auditors.

“At this point, there is still no formal agreement with the WRU in place to date despite ongoing meetings and discussions. Without a formal agreement with the WRU there is still uncertainty on the levels of funding within professional regional rugby in Wales.”

This afternoon Regional Rugby Wales issued a statement announcing that no agreement had been reached with the WRU despite "an incredibly tortuous process", and that the four regions would now have to give urgent consideration to a business model that does not include any form of agreement with the WRU.

Whatever happens next, don't expect good news.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I did not think you could pick and choose when you submit your company accounts. I thought it was compulsory for the directors to submit them on time.

Cneifiwr said...

The law says you have to, and if you don't, you face a penalty. For a delay of between 3 months and 6 months it's just £3,000 for a plc.

Anonymous said...

The similarity between the governance and problems in the WRU and CCC is uncanny and both have chief execs called Lewis.! Are they related?

Cneifiwr said...

Keep up Anon @14.16 - the chief exec of CCC is Mark James!

Anonymous said...

Anon @14.16

Who did you think it was?

Anonymous said...

Andrew Lewis.

Emlyn Uwch Cych said...

Sorry, I can't understand how today's uncertainty re. future operations can affect the year end accounts for 30 June 2013?

Past-present-future. Easy, really!

Anonymous said...

Andrew Lewis the guy Rupert Moon and others blew out of the water .

Anonymous said...

That guy that Ellis Davies and Rupert Moon went to blow out of the water AKA Andrew Lewis.

Cneifiwr said...

Emlyn Uwch Cych - you are absolutely right of course - future events should not have a bearing on last year's accounts. But for the last few years the auditors have been warning that there is material uncertainty as to whether the company is a going concern, and each time the company has held out the prospect of a windfall from some unspecified asset sale. The auditors resigned earlier this year, and it is clear from what the board told the WM that it is seeking to do something similar this time round - "last year was crap, but we are expecting things to get better" seems to be how it works.