Dallaglio breaks his silence on Wasps' losing Championship licence

Lawrence Dallaglio has broken his silence on last Thursday’s revelation that Wasps had their licence to take part in next season’s Championship revoked by the RFU. The expectation was that the busted Gallagher Premiership club would resurface in the second tier in 2023/24, but that idea was quashed by last week’s development.

New owners HALO22 Limited failed to meet an RFU deadline for providing proof that the club could still operate at a professional level and they were told they must instead restart at the bottom of the grassroots playing pyramid.

The decision left Dallaglio infuriated and he has now addressed the matter in depth for the first time on his latest Evening Standard Rugby Podcast. “When you get statements released and the RFU saying, ‘We have been doing everything to help Wasps’, they have been doing very little to help Wasps actually,” he alleged.

“When you say, ‘We have done everything to help Wasps and help Worcester’, I’m not sure who has written that because it’s just pulled out of thin air. Actually, the phone has been very quiet for quite some time and the reality is that rugby is a busted flush as it has been financially for quite some time.

“People obviously want only want 10 teams in the league because if they wanted something different, they would create something different. That is the reality. If you want to let brands like Wasps and Worcester go... good luck to you.

“Wasps couldn’t go to investors to get money to come into the club if they don’t know what the structure is for the Championship and they don’t know what the structure is for the Premiership and the RFU and PRL couldn’t give them that. If your funding for the Premiership is £4.5million/£5m per club and your funding for the Championship is only £50,000, that is quite a difficult thing to bridge.”

Dallaglio, who won five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups with Wasps, added: “Things will move on. At the moment, Wasps are back in the lowest league and if we have to play and get promoted 10 years on the trot, we will do that because it is a strong group of people. There are a lot of very influential people within Wasps and they will come back. I'd watch this space, it’s not quite all over just yet.”

As for a healthier plan for the game in general, Dallaglio suggested: “What the RFU and PRL need to do is come out with the structure of English rugby moving forward. What is the Premiership? Do you want to ring-fence it for three to five years for 10 clubs? Is that competitive? Is it anti-competitive? Is it allowed?

“Even if you’re going to allow clubs to be in the Championship, do any clubs actually want to come up from the Championship? Are you going to take Wasps P-shares and are you going to spread them out amongst the rest of the Premiership and share them amongst the group or are you going to ring-fence them and allow the opportunity for clubs to come up?

“Otherwise, it just becomes what you call a cartel, doesn't it? And you know there’s no way in and no way out.”