Hope springs eternal, except in Welsh rugby, of course.
Weeks out from the start of the new season, English clubs are already getting signings in place for the 2023/24 season. The Welsh professional sides meanwhile are still in the dark over their budgets for this coming campaign.
It’s understood that the Welsh Rugby Union are willing to pay £23m for the development and additional release of international players next season, while the professional clubs want somewhere nearer £29m. Five weeks out from the start of the season, it's a miserable situation to be in.
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The reality is that an agreement will be reached with the figure likely being closer to the WRU's offer - such is the power dynamic. If that's the case, the Ospreys, Scarlets, Dragons and Cardiff will end up with roughly less than £6m each - obviously each side receives a different slice of that pie dependent on things such as how many Test players they provide.
The WRU seem adamant that £23m is all they can muster - with their stance in negotiations understood not to have changed. Last year, it was announced that the PRA payment pot for 2022-23 would go up to £23.5m so this figure is certainly in line with that.
However, it could be argued that they know all too well that simply isn't enough for the regions to be competitive. How do we know this? Well, a current employee has been on the record as saying so only last year.
While he was at Cardiff, now WRU performance director Nigel Walker launched a stinging attack on his future employers - criticising the WRU for the financial stress they had burdened the four clubs with through making the repayment of the CBILS loan the "regions' problem". He was adamant that when you're in it together, "you don’t disadvantage one stakeholder and the regions have been disadvantaged".
And when it came to finances, there was a specific figure in mind that would allow the four clubs to be competitive. “If you could get to £7.5m, we could be competitive in Europe. If you could get to £8.5m, crikey Moses.”
That, Walker said at the time, would be what you could describe as "adequately funded". 'Funded' is fundamentally the wrong term, in my view, as the money is paid in return for developing Welsh players and then allowing them to spend more time with the Wales squad around international windows as part of the Professional Rugby Agreement. But regardless of the terminology, it seems unlikely, while now an employee of the WRU, that his view can have changed all that much.
However, and Walker is by no means the most culpable in this, the WRU are clearly unwilling to provide what at least one of their employees feel, or at least felt, is needed to give the clubs at least a fighting chance of being competitive. They will argue there is simply no more money, that they have a responsibility to fund other areas of the game as well.
So what can the clubs do about it? Well, if there was a sure-fire solution, it would almost certainly have been found by now.
In essence, the reason why we're in this situation five weeks out from the start of the season - and the reason why the regions will likely take what they feel is an unsatisfactory deal - is the power balance between the union and the clubs. WRU CEO Steve Phillips has previously denied there's a master and slave relationship, but, with the PRA as it is, personally I feel it's hard to see anything but.
This isn't to say the regions are perfect when it comes to finances, we should point out. Sources have previously relayed the concerning issue that spiralling wages have resulted in money being wasted in a system that simply cannot afford any superfluous spending. Could that be playing a part in WRU thinking?
However, I personally believe the PRA should be there to ensure the regions are properly compensated for providing Test players to Wales. To me it seems to have become a means of getting as much for the national side for as little as possible - with the clubs reliant on the WRU financially with the scales of the deal tilted one way.
As such, you could question whether the WRU pay market value for the availability of players. What the clubs actually get seems mainly at the behest of the WRU.
So what can be done? Well in my view tipping the balance of the PRA back towards their own favour would be a start.
The growing feeling among some that something nuclear needs to happen in order to startle the WRU into meaningful action. Quite what that would be though is unclear. A breakaway, like the Cardiff and Swansea rebels of the late 1990s is mentioned in dispatches, but the chances of that happening - even to the English Championship initially - appear less than slim.
Logically, given how this latest stalemate over finance largely relates to the availability of club players for the international game, perhaps that would be the place to hit the WRU in terms of finding a bargaining chip. Regulation 9 means players have to be released for Test matches inside the international window, but were there a way to stop players linking up with Wales for out-of-window training camps and Test matches, it might just force the WRU's hand.
If anything could accelerate change, it's the fortunes of the Welsh national side going awry. Defeat to Italy in Cardiff earlier in the year gave a glimpse of what could come, but a spirited series in South Africa changed perception - albeit, I feel, it only served to paper over the cracks.
It wouldn't take much for things to go south once again later in the year. Australia is the match out of the Test window this time around and playing that fixture without Welsh-based players would be a nightmare scenario.
It could be a similar scenario with the opening match against New Zealand. Under the agreement between the WRU and the regions, Wales have access to home-based players for a 13-day training camp before the start of each Test campaign. But were there some pushback on that, Wales would face only having their players for a week ahead of the All Blacks match.
All of that would require a totally united front - and a drastic course of action - from the four clubs. Part of the problem is there hasn't always been a completely joined up approach, but the flipside is without working together, we'll be in the same vicious cycle as always.
Part of the recent minutes of the Joint Supporters Group meeting included the line, when referring to financial fixes: "If this doesn’t work then it will be down to people and not the plan." As such, the feeling from them is the onus is on Phillips, Walker and WRU chairman Rob Butcher to instil real change - starting with the payments the regions feel they need.
Failing that, the clubs would have to find a way to instigate monumental change. The rest of those recent minutes don't seem to suggest such a public response is coming any time soon.
It means the ones hit hardest are the fans. It's questionable whether there's been such an apathetic attitude in the game before, with many understandably fed up. Fair play to those who renewed their season tickets, fair enough to those who didn't. After a while, that Albert Einstein quote about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results becomes all too familiar.
With the new season on the horizon, this should be a time of excitement ahead of the new campaign. Unfortunately, hope springs eternal everywhere other than Welsh rugby.
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