A message from David Moffett’s team of volunteers

The following message was sent to our Welsh Rugby Clubs this evening (Wednesday 12th June 2014).

This Sunday, four months of hard work will come to an end. We started out in February as just four committed grassroots rugby people (players, fans, club members and lovers of the game) who all met up one day in a hotel foyer.

Aside from rugby, we had two things in common;

1. We were fed up with the WRU
2. We wondered why David Moffett had come back to Wales

Ten minutes after meeting the man, the answer to the second point became obvious. David didn’t need the money – he’s got businesses that sustain him. He didn’t need the power – he’s already been the CEO, run NZRFU and ARL.

He came because he cared, and because he has unfinished business.

We’re just a set of normal guys – we all work, all have families, all do other things, and we’re of all ages – but we care too. Rugby is deep within us all, and always has been.

We’re just days away from the EGM and we’ve been on one hell of a journey. Here are a couple of highlights:

• We produced a world-first Rugby Manifesto;
• We travelled the length & breadth of Wales to talk to grassroots club members;
• We held a publicly-funded Welsh Rugby Question Time in St David’s Hall;
• We organised a Press Conference at the historic Castle Hotel in Neath;
• We were refused entry to Millennium Stadium when trying to deliver the EGM papers!

Oh, and we helped organise a campaign that resulted in the most clubs ever to call for an EGM in Welsh Rugby history. That’s right, just us four amateurs, led by David, against a £67m Goliath of company and its board of 18 professional rugby administrators.

David won’t take the credit for what’s been achieved, but he deserves it. Without him, there would be no EGM on Sunday. More than anything though, what he’s done is to get people talking again. Rugby politics is now back on the agenda, just when we’d all but given up hope.

These past few days have been extremely tough. David is his own man and makes his own decisions. He is impulsive sometimes, but he is also extremely well informed and clever. “People have underestimated me all my life”, he reminds us on occasions. Haven’t they just.

We’ve all put as much as we possibly can into this campaign, and in the past three months alone we’ve helped secure some positive changes for Welsh Rugby:

• The ill-advised Youth Rugby restructure has been halted
• Clubs have received funding increases
• There have been sweeping changes to ticketing policy and the WRU has been forced to make operational changes to ticket office management
• The WRU has admitted it needs to appoint Non-Executive Directors and have female representation on the Board
• Our revolutionary Combined Player Contracts are about to be introduced for the Pro game
• The WRU is finally communicating directly with clubs instead of via District Meetings

None of this would have happened without David Moffett. Those of you who have read the ‘One Wales’ Manifesto will recognise many of the WRU’s recent “initiatives” from those pages.

Remember the Financial Expose? We spent days checking the WRU accounts 2007 – 2013 (each about 157 pages!) and what we found made us furious. If you haven’t read it, it’s here.

We sent it out to the clubs and the WRU responded about a week later. They said (we’re paraphrasing): “It’s not true, but we can’t tell you why it’s not true until we work it out, and then if you want to know, please specifically request it and we’ll arrange a meeting.”

So one of our clubs called their bluff and wrote asking for an explanation. Not once, but three times, to our District Rep, to Roger Lewis, to David Pickering, to Dennis Gethin. Guess what we got back? Absolutely nothing. They just called our document “scurrilous, and inaccurate”.

Some people don’t like David Moffett. We understand. Many of those that have such a low opinion have probably never met him, and probably don’t want to. It’s easier to abuse from afar on Twitter and Facebook. This is the man that walked into the middle of the Shed at Sardis Road during Ponty’s big game against Llanelli. Some Ponty fans warmed to him and his message that he was just trying to help. Others ignored him. That’s fine – you can’t win everyone over.

But you know what, it’s not all about Moffett. It never has been.

It’s about getting the right people, the right structures, and the right relationships in place. Welsh rugby below Team Wales has been struggling to survive for years. The regions stumble through the unloved and currently sponsor-less Pro12, and the grassroots game is suffering beyond belief.

This campaign has been about that bigger picture.

Club against club off-the-field is not the way of Welsh Rugby. We do our warring on the pitch and once the match is over we share a beer together. Call it socialism, friendship, camaraderie or just a good craic; it is the backbone of our game. It cannot – and will not – be eroded away by centralist policies.

What next?

There are people waiting in the wings to come in and help you to take back the WRU. They haven’t revealed themselves yet, and why would they? But trust us, they are ready and willing to help. We’re talking big names and world-class administrators – and all of them rugby people.

The minute you vote out the current Board they’ll be ready to help. They’re already circling. We guarantee you will know or have heard of most of them, and they are so much better than what we have.

They can take the game – our game – forward. No more bickering, no more failed deals, no more of the clubs money thrown at bankers, no longer will clubs be ignored and treated with contempt, no more embarrassing revelations from outsiders. These new people will take Welsh Rugby back to where it belongs: at the top of world rugby.

Grassroots Welsh Rugby never was and never can be based on the big business model. It needs to be run by people who understand it, for it is a Union of Welsh Rugby Clubs. That is the basis on which it was founded and the basis upon which it works best.

Change is possible this weekend – and that opportunity is now firmly in your hands. Some of you have written to us to say you have no future if the current regime implements its plans. Let the current Board win and your future is bleak. You will not get this chance again.

For us, this probably is the end of the journey. For you, it can be the beginning.

You have the power, as David Moffett continually told you. Vote out the current board and take back your Welsh Rugby Union.

Yours,

Four genuine, concerned grassroots rugby supporters.