Bristol Bears will part company with club legend Mark Tainton at the end of the season.
The former fly-half will leave his role as chief executive at the Premiership side following the furore over the club’s contracts error earlier this season.
Tainton, who is also on the board of directors at Bristol, is the club’s all-time record points scorer but according to The Daily Mail has apparently paid the price for the clubs’ contracts error which has impacted director of rugby Pat Lam’s recruitment plans, with a number of high-profile players leaving in the summer with the Bears unable to match the financial offers coming from elsewhere.
An official statement from the club released today said he is stepping down for personal reasons.
Tainton said: “It’s always a hard decision to make a change, but I feel after so many years of service to the sport and club that I love, now is the right time to move on.
“I’m looking forward to spending time with my wife Catherine and I’m excited about exploring different opportunities both inside and outside of the game.
“As a proud Bristolian, Bears will always remain close to my heart, and I wish the club every success going forward.”
Tainton was appointed Chief Operating Officer in 2017 and CEO in 2019. During his last five years at the helm, Tainton oversaw the Bears’ return to the Premiership, the commercial rebrand of the club, along with the construction and delivery of the new multi-million-pound Bears High Performance Centre.
Bears chairman Chris Booy said: “Mark has been a tremendous servant to the club. Aside from his excellent playing and coaching career he has steered the club through an incredible five years of growth and the last two years of a global pandemic which had a huge impact on the club and professional sport.
“During that time Mark worked tirelessly to ensure our players and staff were safe and able to compete at the highest level. Seeing Bears secure our first silverware in Europe in the European Challenge Cup in 2020 – albeit behind closed doors – was one of the proudest moments of my life and I’m sure will be a memory that will stay with Mark forever too as a testament to his tireless efforts during the pandemic.
“I’d personally like to thank Mark for all he has done for the club, over so many years, and the club wishes him the very best for his next endeavours.”
The backdrop to Tainton's departure is the fact the Bears are understood to have missed a deadline to officially release six players the club intended to part company with this summer, meaning the automatic additional year on their original two plus one contracts has kicked in. As a result, the Bears were committed to contracts worth around £400,000 that they had not anticipated when putting the squad together to fit under the reduced £5m salary cap.
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In his role as chief executive, Tainton played a key role in recruitment and contract negotiations at the club. During recent years he has been a highly visible figure at the Bears but since the story broke about the contracts error he has been noticeably absent.
Tainton has held multiple roles at the Bears since breaking into the first team as a player in 1984, playing into the early days of professionalism before hanging up his boots in 1997 after 240 games as the club’s all time highest points scorer with 2,063.
After retiring the former fly-half spent twelve years as a technical coach with Ireland and served as interim head coach during the second half of the 2016/17 Premiership campaign.
The Daily Mail adds that Bears former head of communications, now head of operations, Tom Tainton, could be promoted in the back office change up but that is yet to be confirmed.
In the wake of the story breaking about the club’s gaffe, Bristol Bears were forced to issue a statement confirming they were not at risk of breaching the salary cap.
In recent weeks the club have confirmed the departure of former England international lock Dave Attwood to Bath Rugby, former All Black prop John Afoa to ProD2 side Vannes along with Samoan international winger Alapati Leiua.
Former England number eight Nathan Hughes has also signed for Clermont Auvergne and in perhaps the biggest blow, emerging talent Antoine Frisch has been snapped up on a three-year deal by Munster after just a single season at Bristol.
Discussing Frisch's exit last week, Lam said: "The Irish Rugby Union came in after our Saracens game with a very good deal. We obviously had a deal on the table for him but it was trumped by a three-year deal with the Irish Rugby Union.
"The thing I like about Antoine is he is pretty driven about what he wants to achieve and he has been great here but ultimately we weren't going to match what Ireland offered.
"I know fans were getting excited about some of the flash playing stuff but that is not what is valued for us, what is valued by us is understanding our game, doing the simple things really well on both sides of the ball and we believe he still had a lot of development to go and his contract offer reflected that."
Bristol have already confirmed a number of big-name signings, adding USA international fly-half AJ MacGinty from Sale Sharks, Leicester Tigers captain Ellis Genge and Scotland international backrower Magnus Bradbury from Edinburgh Rugby.
