Wasps and Worcester confirm their futures and it is vastly contrasting

NEWS UPDATE: Wasps have been cleared to play in next season’s Championship, but there will be no such place in the English second tier for fellow crisis club Worcester.

Both Worcester, whose debts reached around £30-million (US$36-million), and Wasps entered administration in October, largely over unpaid tax bills, and were kicked out of the top-flight Premiership as a result.

While Wasps have met the conditions required to take part in the Championship, talks held Monday between Worcester’s new owners Atlas, the Rugby Football Union and the British government’s sports department failed to resolve the impasse.

“Given Atlas’ withdrawal from the process, we remain concerned that there are insufficient funds to pay rugby creditors which is the responsibility of the administrator of WRFC Trading Limited and the liquidator of WRFC Players Limited to determine,” said RFU Chief Executive Bill Sweeney on Wednesday.

Atlas announced last Thursday the RFU’s terms for inclusion in the Championship were too demanding, forcing them to instead pursue a merger with semi-professional Stourbridge in the hope of competing in the fourth tier.

Sweeney, while pleased to see Wasps returning to the Championship, said of Atlas’ position: “For a club to continue following insolvency, it is imperative that it has a sustainable and funded business plan, that there is transparency about ownership and funding structures, and that rugby creditors are paid.

“Payment of rugby creditors is an integral part of our insolvency regulations and we cannot approve the takeover of a club without agreement that rugby creditor payments will be made.”