LONDON WELSH board director Jonathan Shankland says allowing Wasps to remerge from the ashes of administration and go straight into the Championship would be a “slap in the face” for other phoenix clubs who served their time in the lower leagues.
In January 2017 London Welsh were booted out of the Championship and removed from the professional game before being consigned to the bottom tier of English rugby. Like near-neighbours Richmond, the Exiles club has had to work its way back up without a leg-up from the game’s governing body.
Having started up again in Herts & Middlesex Division 1, Welsh have climbed up four rungs of the league ladder to Regional 1 South Central (Level 5). Wasps, meanwhile, hope to be part of an expanded Championship if they manage to get back off the floor after going into administration in October 2022 with debts of £95 million.
Shankland speaks for many in the game in appealing to the RFU to avoid two-tiered governance.
“I think there would be a significant issue for a lot of people, the Championship clubs and ourselves, Jersey, Richmond, thinking of yesteryear, for example – clubs that have faltered slightly financially – if a club were parachuted into Tier 2 after two years in the wilderness and out of existence. I think that would be an interesting development,” he said in an interview on SGYRM, an online rugby channel.
“I think it would send a really poor message to rugby as a whole, particularly in this country, where you have clubs historically who weren’t treated the same, if that does happen.
“And we are talking significant administration here, debts of over 90, 100 million. Which is not what happened when we went into administration.
“Not wanting to be controversial about it but I think that would be a severe slap in the face not only for us but other clubs who have paid their penance and done it the right way and not complained. Lots of people complained about the way we were treated but we’ve not complained, we knuckled down and got on with it. We are back now with serious rugby at level 5.”
Recently it was reported that Wasps will ground share with Charlton Athletic if the club’s revival in the second tier of English rugby goes ahead in the 2025/26 season.
Wasps had bid to build their own 28,000-seat stadium in Sevenoaks in Kent, but have faced strong local opposition to their proposed plans – forcing them to look at other options.
