'It's not fair, it's not right and it shouldn't happen'

Coventry Rugby chief executive Nick Johnston has labelled the suggestion that the RFU will allow Wasps to relaunch as a Championship rival in Solihull next season as “mind-boggling”. The Daily Telegraph broke the story towards the end of last week, a couple of days after Johnston and Coventry owner Jon Sharp began hearing rumours linking the former Ricoh Arena club with Solihull Moors FC’s Damson Park venue.

The highly-experienced former Sale, Northampton and Worcester executive Johnston is seething about the decision – which is yet to be officially ratified. “When we heard the rumour we thought: ‘No, they surely can’t move again'. With the regulations in place and out there in the public domain it’s got to be done properly this time.

“But it would appear we were wrong - they have been London Wasps, Wycombe Wasps, Coventry Wasps and now it seems Solihull Wasps. Where does it stop? If they win the league they will have to move again unless Damson Park is upgraded to meet Premiership criteria, so who knows?

“There is a fundamental difference this time compared to 2014. They are now a franchise operating in our league in our backyard. The analogy I use is that you and your family have owned a fish and chip shop for 50 years and when I come along and buy the building opposite to start my own fish and chip shop how would you react?

“We will be chasing the same commercial sponsors, the same fans and the same players in the same community. Why have the RFU inhibited us here when they had the opportunity to let us grow? We have put huge amounts of effort in building a club with a real identity and connection to its past and our city but we are now vulnerable.

"We don’t know Wasps’ financial model but where are they going to come for players? To us and Moseley. It’s not fair, it’s not right and it shouldn’t happen. There wasn’t enough room for a Premiership side in Coventry with Northampton, Leicester and Worcester just down the road and now there very definitely isn’t room for two Championship sides in Warwickshire. Around 375,000 people live in Coventry – it isn’t London.

Johnston was also hugely upset by the absence of any dialogue or communication between the RFU and third-placed Championship outfit Coventry. "The complete lack of respect for a club of Coventry’s standing left us speechless,” he said.

“No one had the decency to ring up Mr Sharp, a guy who is Coventry born and bred that has invested huge amounts of time, finance and emotion in this club and wants nothing out of it and tell us what was happening.

“Out of courtesy and respect that is the minimum that should have happened - what we got was total radio silence. There are some positives as a number of rugby creditors who are owed money will be paid, but that won’t help the bondholders. Where is the moral compass on this?”

Johnson believes the decision to waive an existing regulation and allow Wasps to relaunch at a venue around ten miles from the city in which both clubs were based since December 2014 breaches governance. He further questions whether a less fashionable club would have been similarly accommodated.

“How has this been allowed? he asked. “Very clearly it is part of the fit and proper person test under RFU regulation five that a phoenix club must spend its first three years in the venue where its predecessor was based. But that has just been ignored, and that makes you ask: ‘What else has been ignored here?

“We believe it is our right to have absolute visibility of the decision-making process around this. We have been clearly told that we must be financially sustainable going forward. So why have the RFU bent their own rules to allow a failed club to set up not just in our backyard but also as direct rivals in the same division?

“We faced the challenge of the pandemic head-on, cut our cloth and let some good people go which didn’t sit comfortably with us. We all mucked in and did 20 jobs to get through. We are now facing rivals in the same division for whom the RFU have ignored the regulations and then allowed to locate just ten miles away. How does that help us with sustainability?

“If they are going to bend the rules for them they need to go back to London, but there’s an element of protectionism going on there with the Premiership clubs in West London. I also think we are being discreetly punished by the RFU for being vocal and challenging them on how the Championship is being run. I’ve heard they label us renegades.”

Coventry's chief executive sees the RFU’s handling of this situation as typical of an inconsistent and muddled approach which has seen Championship clubs placed under extreme pressure in recent years. "The current model is broken and totally fails to support the league’s financial and commercial structures,” he said.

“In truth, if things don’t change and despite loads of hard work from the Championship clubs, we are perhaps 18 months away from being the league at the top of the community game rather than one step below the sport’s elite level.

“What leadership there is - with a couple of exceptions - is totally ineffective. The Championship lacks identity or purpose and has no clearly defined aims and outcomes which all clubs share. There is a real absence of governance and consultation with experienced, well-qualified individuals in the member clubs.

“Typical of this was the huge financial cuts imposed on all the clubs post-Covid. The RFU justified these measures by saying we had failed to deliver enough return on investment for the RFU against a set of four metrics, but they were measures we had never seen.

“To make things worse even though we were supposed to get £375,000 instead of the previous £645,000 we actually receive around £150,000 and even that has never been officially confirmed. If the cuts were pandemic-related and phased then why have the Premiership clubs - in a league the RFU don’t own - been unaffected and why has the level of support for the Championship which they do not increase now the pandemic is over?

“There is no incentive for member clubs to invest as the goalposts can move so quickly which makes every decision a big risk. We badly need a commissioner-led standalone, independent executive management team with responsibility for everything relating to administration, financial control, competition structure and operations plus the commercial model and governance.

“As the recent DCMS inquiry into the collapse of Wasps and Worcester found, our sport in England needs a huge overhaul. The current set-up facilitates conflicts of interest when what is needed is independence, transparency and accountability.

“We also wrote a blueprint in 2019 in conjunction with Cornish Pirates, Ealing Trailfinders and London Scottish, which was never discussed and dismissed by the championship executive and the RFU. In 2021 the TEC proposal was written, which was rejected out of hand because the RFU didn’t like the three of us - Steve Smith, Ed Griffiths and myself - who produced it.

"This was designed to be a thought-provoking paper, not the 'finished article'. Unfortunately, this was lost on certain championship clubs and the RFU on personal grounds. In February 2021 Cornish Pirates and ourselves met RFU chief executive Bill Sweeney and his team to raise our concerns. We were promised a review.

"Instead we got a few conversations between the RFU and those who in our view are causing most of the issues and surprise, surprise they decided nothing needed to change. Every time you speak up the RFU accuses you of chasing limelight which I find really offensive, not least because the people that say it can’t wait to get on BT Sport when they get a chance.

“I’m 50-odd-years-old and way beyond chasing the limelight, but when there is something important to say which affects the future of a club like Coventry and the rest of the league I will speak my mind. We are at a point now where we are not going to roll over and be dictated to by the RFU.”