Swansea Council has taken further steps in their efforts to stop the WRU’s proposals
Swansea Council has escalated efforts to prevent the WRU selling Cardiff Rugby to Y11 Sport and Media by formally asking the Competition and Markets Authority to investigate the proposed takeover.
The council, under its combative leader Rob Stewart, has called on the WRU to row back on plans to reduce the number of professional regions in Wales from four to three. The current owners of the Ospreys are close to finalising a deal to acquire Cardiff Rugby, which the union acquired out of administration last year.
Following a meeting with the WRU chief executive Abi Tierney and CEO of the Ospreys Lance Bradley, with Mr Stewart and a number of senior council figures, including its chief executive Martin Nicholls, the local authority maintains it was made clear Y11 signalled that the Ospreys would cease to be a professional region beyond the current 2026-27 season.
Instead the council said it was proposed that the Ospreys effectively merged with Swansea RFC – which Y11 has no control over – to create a new team, the Osprey Whites, that would play at a semi professional level in the Super Cymru Rugby competition
It is also understood that in the meeting the idea of a redeveloped St Helens’s hosting one of two new women’s professional teams in Wales, as well as U-20 men’s international matches, was also floated.
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The union, without giving its version of what was said in the meeting, has described the council’s take on the meeting as inaccurate. Earlier this month Swansea lodged a pre-action legal letter with the WRU, with a response deadline of last Friday, calling for the union to put on hold the deal for Cardiff with Y11, which is close to being finalised.
The local authority had committed £5m to developing St Helen’s on the understanding that the Ospreys became long long-term tenant playing in the United Rugby Championship with the other Welsh regions
Now the council has formally submitted a case to the CMA to halt the proposed takeover. The CMA, which has been contacted for comment, usually has a relatively short window to consider whether a case has merit to proceed to a contestable stage. So, as it stands there is nothing preventing the WRU striking a ownership deal for Cardiff with Y11, who are majority owned at Kuala Lumpur based private firm Navis Capital.
Swansea Council are being advised by barristers Nick D Marco, Mark Vinall and Tom Watret of Blackstone Chambers
The council’s case to the CMA, under the Competition Act, is the union’s proposals risk unfairly restricting competition, reducing choice for supporters, and damaging Swansea’s economy.
The council is urging the CMA to investigate urgently and to consider interim measures to pause the proposed deal.
The submission to the CMA says: “The CMA should strongly consider using its powers under section .35 of the Competition Act 1998 to issue interim measures to prevent the sale of Cardiff Rugby to Y11 pending its investigation. Given the speed with which the situation is developing, that sale is likely to result in serious, irreparable damage, insofar as it will result in the de facto elimination of Ospreys as a professional men’s rugby club, and the CMA’s intervention would clearly be in the public interest. The CMA should act quickly to preserve the status quo.”
It adds: “Thee WRU’s decision about geographical distribution of the licences was an unfair distortion of competition. Despite the WRU’s claim that any club could bid for any licence, that did not reflect the practical reality.
“In practice, it meant that Dragons and Cardiff were protected (despite Dragons being historically the least successful of the four teams and Cardiff having had to be rescued from Administration, and Newport and Cardiff being only 12 miles apart);
“The fact that the WRU owned Cardiff when it made that decision also gave rise to a conflict of interest between the WRU’s immediate commercial interests and the long-term interests of the game.”
The council’s submission continues: “The fact that this outcome has arisen neither as a result of consensus between the four regions, nor as a result of the fair and transparent bidding process, taking place over a six-month long period, that was promised by the WRU in default of consensus.
Instead, it has emerged as the result of a secretive process apparently driven by the short-term interests of the WRU (which is enabled to both divest itself of Cardiff and avoid having to run the promised tender process for licences) and the commercial interests of Y11 (which is enabled to acquire both Cardiff Rugby and, de facto, the geographic licence for the capital, as well as apparently being given the extraordinary permission to own two teams for a period so that it can do so), at the expense of Ospreys and their stakeholders, including the Council, the club’s players, staff and fans and their affiliated clubs.”
The Council said it has also been financially disadvantaged, having already committed £1.5 million preparing St Helen’s for redevelopment, including the cost of relocating Swansea Cricket Club, that played at St Helen’s , to a new ground.
While not a legal agreement, the council has signed a pre-lease agreement with the Ospreys (Y11) for a 50-year lease at St Helen’s starting at an annual rent of £100,000, subject to inflation linked reviews.
Mr Stewart said: “The WRU’s proposals would mean the end of the Ospreys as a professional men’s rugby region. This would be a huge blow to our city – economically, culturally and emotionally.
“Players, supporters, residents, community clubs and local businesses all deserve a fair and transparent process from the WRU.
“We cannot accept a situation where decisions are made behind closed doors to remove one of Wales’s four professional teams and leave Swansea without top-level rugby.
“We are asking the CMA to step in urgently to protect competition and give our city and region the fair treatment it deserves.”
