It has been a turbulent few months for Cardiff with the financial struggles which has paralysed Welsh rugby and the departure of director of rugby Dai Young following a three-month suspension leaving the club in a difficult place.
WalesOnline take a close look at how Wales’ capital city side reached this point, the problems at the club, and what needs to be done to give themselves a chance of achieving success over the coming season’s.
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The Dai Young situation
With regards Young the powers that be at Cardiff received allegations of bullying against the former Wales prop, and had no choice but to suspend him at the end of April. Despite the widespread criticism they have received on social media the Cardiff board acted appropriately and professionally in this matter.
Following Young’s suspension they commissioned a barrister to undertake an independent review. The barrister concluded there was insufficient evidence to support the allegations and no further action should be taken in relation to them.
However, Young’s position had clearly become untenable with both parties agreeing to go their separate ways.
How have Cardiff ended up in this situation?
This is about more than the situation with Young because the club have struggled for a number of years. To their credit they were the top Welsh side last season while they aren’t the only side in Wales, or the UK for that matter, with deep rooted problems.
As is the case with all four Welsh regions their relationship with the Welsh Rugby Union has not helped. There is a lack of alignment between the governing body and its professional sides which has made it difficult to plan, resulting in a lack of stability.
Undoubtedly there is blame on both sides but the regions would argue the WRU haven’t adequately compensated them for the services of their players. Arguably the biggest issue which has caused financial distress at the Arms Park is the dissolution of the old National Squad 38.
Up until this season the WRU paid towards 80% of the wage of a player in the NS38 with the region paying the remaining 20% with high earners such as Taulupe Faletau falling into this category. Former WRU chief executive Steve Phillips paid the regions on an annual basis yet expected each side to enter into multi-year contracts with high-earning players.
With the NS38 now abolished Cardiff have been left with a massive hangover due to a lack of financial planning which has left them with a very unbalanced squad. Of course, you could also argue Cardiff, along with the other regions, should have spent the money they received more wisely.
Culture
Having spoken to various employees at the club one word keeps coming up and that’s culture. In high performance sport it’s very difficult for the culture of the board to align with the that of the playing squad.
On the field Cardiff’s players deserve tremendous credit for the way they came together last season in the wake of the protracted contractual freeze, the death of Peter Thomas, and Young’s suspension to finish the top Welsh region. Clearly, the culture on the field isn’t too bad but elsewhere there are obvious issues.
The fact there were those who deemed it necessary to file official allegations of bullying against the club’s director of rugby isn’t great at all even if there was no sufficient evidence found to corroborate these complaints.
“Any organisation needs to avoid an official complaint like the plague if it can because once somebody files such a complaint you are automatically in a quasi-judicial process,” said Huw Jones who was the CEO of Sport Wales for 15 years during which time it was recognised by the Sunday Times as being one of the Top 100 places to work in the UK.
“The key is having a strong informal system to avoid situations like the one which has played out at Cardiff rugby. The chief executive of an organisation needs to have a strong grip on the culture of an organisation.
“Head coaches cannot be allowed to operate unchecked. We’ve seen problems of bullying in some Olympic sports. They’ve appeared on the high performance side of a organisation not on the administrative side. The CEO needs to be consistently talking to people in different departments to stay on top of anything.
“Once he or she gets a whiff of anything resembling inappropriate behaviour it needs to be addressed immediately to stop it festering. It may well be the case that Dai Young did nothing wrong but whatever happened should never have been allowed to get this far.
“For somebody to feel the need to make an official complaint, whether they were right or wrong about the allegations of bullying, does show the culture of the organisation as a whole isn’t where it needs to be.”
A lack of stability
Ever since Young originally left Cardiff for Wasps in 2011 the club have gone from one head coach to another. This week Young became the fourth director of rugby or head coach to be let go by the club under the reign of current CEO Richard Holland while Danny Wilson refused to accept a contract extension.
While professional rugby is a cut throat business based on results, and there is an argument for freshening the coaching team up from time to time, one can’t help but feel a lack of stability has done Cardiff no favours. The likes of John Mulvihill and Phil Davies didn’t deliver the required results and it was probably the right call to part ways with them but why there they employed in the first place?
Arguably the most damaging coaching departure from a Cardiff point of view was when former WalesU20s boss Wilson turned down a new contract because he didn’t think the playing budget at the club could deliver success while it didn’t help that the contract of one of his new signings at the time, Franco van der Merwe, got cancelled.
Wilson was Cardiff coach between 2015 and 2018 leading the Welsh club to European Challenge Cup glory with a stunning victory over Gloucester in the final in Bilbao while one player told this journalist the club would have gone from strength to strength if the former hooker had stayed in charge.
Finances
In May, Holland admitted the region had “cashflow pressures” and in July the accounts for the year ending 30 June 2022 showed a loss of £2.2m – up from £1.6m the previous year.
Club chairman Alun Jones admitted “focus must now shift to the future” in his submission to Companies House. The club is also still paying back a £5.5m loan struck on their behalf by the WRU to keep them afloat during the COVID period.
Against such a perilous financial background, made all the worse this year by the passing of Life President and chief benefactor Peter Thomas, any pay off to Young is merely going to add to their burden. Following the sad death of Thomas Cardiff need to get their house in order off the field.
Y11 Sports and Media, the majority shareholders in the Ospreys, are rumoured to be in talks with Cardiff about buying a share in the club. While an injection of cash would be welcome the Cardiff board need to ensure they have a strong financial plan to put the club on a firm footing.
What needs to be done to fix the club?
The first things which needs answering is what need to be done to turn the club into an efficient high performance organisation.
“High performing organisations are characterised by five factors” said former Sport Wales chief executive Huw Jones. “The first thing which needs to happen is the club needs to have a very clear vision of what it’s actually trying to do,”
“Secondly, it needs to seek insights into how it’s going to achieve that. For example, there’s no point the Cardiff board saying they want to win the Champions Cup if a mechanism hasn’t been put in place of how they are going to achieve that.
“Thirdly there’s no point having any targets unless you constantly seek feedback and make adjustments to achieve the goal you’ve set yourselves as an organisation. You also need to be really honest as a club.
“What’s letting you down as an organisation? What are your strengths and weaknesses? The culture needs to come from the top and the chief executive needs to be responsible in ensuring it’s executed.
“Fourthly everybody needs to be clear about their role in the organisation, what is expected of them and how they fit in. They need to feel valued.
Finally, everyone needs to speak with one voice about the organisation and realise they are all in it together”.
“The buck stops with the CEO and they need to ensure the same strong culture spreads throughout the whole organisation.”
Clarity and stability
The new six-year financial framework between the WRU and the regions has been widely criticised but despite the mass hysteria on social media there is agreement across the board that recent levels of spending were unsustainable.
This new deal at the very least allows the professional sides to start planning ahead. As one high ranking member of Welsh rugby told this journalist this week: “We can’t spend our way out of this problem.”
While every effort needs to be put into creating greater commercial income to push the playing budgets up the regions will be forced to put some strong building blocks in place. It’s stating the obvious to say Cardiff need to appoint a strong head coach who can get the best out of limited resources but more importantly he needs to be a good man manager.
Recruitment also needs to be smarter. It’s not about signing the most high profile players it’s about recruiting people who can fit into the style of play the new coach wants to adopt. They also need to ensure they sign players who are strong characters off the field.
