THE Shadow Secretary of State for Wales has responded to news that Wales’s four regions are writing to MPs and Welsh Assembly members to get political backing.
It comes as Scarlets supporters met with the Welsh Rugby Union to air their grievances last week over the row threatening the future of the sport.
Owen Smith called for all of Welsh rugby’s clubs, communities and fans, and their political representatives, to come together and demand change from the Welsh Rugby Union.
Mr Smith last year launched a campaign called Valleys Rugby to highlight the lack of top-flight rugby in the south Wales Valleys that have traditionally been the main source of players and support for the game in Wales.
He said: “Even though Wales has enjoyed great success at international level in recent years, the club game has been in permanent crisis since the creation of the regional clubs.
“Numbers watching and participating in the game at club level have fallen consistently and the average age of the fans is rising every year.
“Our game is failing because fans have never truly warmed to the regional concept and want a game based on traditional club identities and the centuries of fraternal rivalry that exists between them.
“In many parts of our rugby heartlands fans, players and the volunteers who are the backbones of our rugby clubs feel totally alienated from the elite, professional game.
“This latest crisis is nothing more than a power struggle between the clubs and the Union for control of the game’s principle assets, money and the players that generate it.
“Whoever wins that battle, the wider game will be the loser in the long term.
“Sport needs jeopardy and tradition to be exciting and have meaning for people.
“That means Welsh rugby needs to open up to the concept of promotion and relegation in revised structures, whether within Wales, with England or across Europe, and go back to the future with clubs that are famed across the globe.â€
Article source: http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/irish-showbiz/ireland-rugby-star-jonny-sexton-2047783
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales responds to regions rugby row
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