Welsh Rugby Finally Ends Row

The lengthy controversy within Welsh rugby has finally been smoothed over with the Welsh Rugby Union announcing a five-year deal with the four regions that aims to solve both the player-release issue and funding problems.

The disagreement almost culminated in court with the drama centred on the Wales-New Zealand game, which was being held on 7th November. Because the date sat outside the International Rugby Board Test window, Regional Rugby Wales (which represents the four regions) claimed they were not obliged to release players to prepare and play in the game.

The dispute has been roaring on throughout the summer, but the two sides have finally agreed to a deal that includes who runs the sport and how many non-Welsh-qualified players should play for each region.

The deal requires a commitment by the regions to include an average of 17 Welsh-qualified players in their match squads, increasing to 19 over the five-year term of the deal, and to reduce non-Welsh qualified players to six in each regional squad.

International squad players will be released for Wales training 13 days ahead of the first game of any Test match series, meaning players will have nearly two weeks to train before going up against New Zealand in November.

The regions will also release two players each to the Wales Sevens squad and take control from the WRU of the academies, which develop elite young players, already established in their regions.

In addition to ending the player-release row, the agreement aimed to solve the issue of funding that had cropped up in recent months for the RRW.

Along with the core payments each region receives from the WRU, they will also receive money from competitions, bringing the total up to a maximum of £14.5m between them per season.

With the announcement of this agreement, it seems that both RRW and the WRU have finally managed to find common ground, narrowly escaping a court case that very nearly threatened the sport in Wales.