As Worcester struggle to find the means to start the rugby season, Austin Healey has predicted that one of England’s Premiership clubs will go bust.
Warriors are in a parlous state, hit by a winding-up petition by HMRC over unpaid tax, wages paid late, club accounts frozen and no guarantees as to what even next week holds.
They have committed to playing Saturday’s opening game at London Irish, but will do so wearing last season’s away kit due to another unpaid bill.
Former England star Healey said: “I think inevitably there will be a casualty and while it could be one of the others, as you look at it now it’s most likely to be Worcester.
“It’s like in any walk of life coming out of the pandemic. Businesses that are well managed have survived, the ones that have been poorly run have not.
“Rightly or wrongly I think people will look back and be critical of the owners of Worcester.”
Ben Kay, like Healey a BT Sport pundit, describes this as a “watershed” moment for professional rugby union.
The World Cup winner said: “People have wised up to the fact that you can’t keep spending.
“Premiership rugby clubs were living outside their means anyway, before the pandemic.
“It got to a stage where certain clubs were probably looking around at each other and thinking ‘who’s going to be the first to blink here because we can’t keep going on like this’.
“Suddenly the pandemic hit and it was about survival. The immediate stark reality was ‘Christ, if we don’t do anything everyone’s going to go under, or at least really struggle’.”
Kay added: “We knew coming out of lockdown there would be ongoing consequences for a league that has always pushed itself right to its limits.
“I honestly think there is a change of mindset now that whatever happens moving forward it needs to be sustainable. We have to find a new level.”
Healey argues that the financial crisis which has engulfed the sport will “act as a market correction for the players that have been getting paid too much money”.
He said: “If you’ve got a turnover of £12 million a year you can’t be paying one of your players £1m. It just doesn’t work.
“Paying ‘marquee’ players big sums of money is not the way forward and I think the clubs are slowly working that out.
‘The game’s not broken,” he added. “As a product, as something to watch, it’s never been better.
“But it’s undoubtedly in a difficult period financially, like most industries and markets in the country struggling with a Covid hangover.”
BT Sport is the home of Gallagher Premiership Rugby. The new season kicks off with Bristol Bears v Bath Rugby at 7pm on BT Sport 1 tomorrow www.bt.com/sport/rugby-union
