Nigel Wray, the Premiership’s longest serving administrator having taken over Saracens in the first season of professionalism 24 years ago, has resigned as chairman two months after the club was fined more than £5m and docked 35 league points for breaching salary-cap regulations. The 71-year old will remain the owner of the loss-making double champions, but the fear of supporters is that he will look to sell up and plunge Europe’s most successful club in the last decade into uncertainty.
When Saracens were found guilty of the breach by an independent disciplinary panel at the beginning of November, Wray said he would be carrying on as chairman and maintained that the co-investment schemes he arranged with a number of leading players at the club, such as Owen Farrell and the Vunipola brothers, were not against the rules as they could not be considered as an add-on to salaries because of the risks they carried. He had not reckoned with the depth of feeling against him among the other Premiership clubs – he has not travelled to an away league game since the outcome of the hearing – and concluded that his continuing presence as the club’s leading figure would threaten its rehabilitation.
Edward Griffiths, who was the chief executive of Saracens for nearly seven years from 2008, returns to the position in an interim capacity for the next year. The current CEO, Mitesh Velani, who arranged the finance for the £23m redevelopment of Allianz Park that will be completed this year, remains on the board as a consultant. The club said a new independent chairman would be appointed imminently.
Wray, who is on the board along with his daughter, Lucy, has kept Saracens going with his largesse, two years ago writing off loans worth more than £40m. Like most Premiership clubs, Saracens are in the red with Wray making good annual losses: in their last set of accounts up to June 2018, Saracens had an operating loss of £3.89m on a turnover of £17.93m. Their main Premiership rivals and loudest critics over the salary-cap breach, Exeter, last month announced a profit of more than £1.5m and a record turnover of £21.7m.
Wray said in November, after Saracens announced they would not appeal against the fine and points’ deduction, that he accepted the blame and added: “We will shortly introduce robust independent governance measures acceptable to all, including the appointment to the Saracens board of a director, who will oversee a new governance regime. I will continue as always to support the club financially going forwards to ensure there is no financial instability or uncertainty.”
On Thursday, the I became we. “The Wray family will continue to provide the required financial support to the club, and I will remain actively engaged in the work of the Saracens Sport Foundation and Saracens High School, as part of the club’s ongoing commitment to our community in north London. I will always be committed to the wonderful Saracens family, but I am not getting any younger and feel this is the right moment for me to stand down as chairman.”
It was not the departure Wray had envisaged but a sacrifice was required. Griffiths will bring experience and he left Saracens before the co-investment schemes started, although he never courted popularity at gatherings of Premiership Rugby’s board. The immediate concern for the club is to avoid relegation: they are 18 points behind Leicester with 15 matches left, six of which will be played during the Six Nations when the club can expect to be without up to a dozen players for all or part of the tournament.
For all the money he has invested, it was Wray’s drive, dynamism and vision that took Saracens from relative obscurity in their north London backwater to becoming the dominant force in European club rugby. His initial strategy was to recruit big names from overseas, such as Francois Pienaar, Philippe Sella and Michael Lynagh, but after that approach yielded headlines rather than trophies, he started building from within, to the benefit of England, and the move to Allianz Park provided the club with a community.
Wray maintained his co-investment schemes were designed not to keep players who could otherwise be seduced by bigger offers by bending the rules, but to set them up after they finished playing, regarding them as far more than commodities to be traded. “We treat talented people unbelievably well and in return they try unbelievably hard,” said Griffiths in a 2014 interview. “Our process is looking after people.”
