Steve Diamond announces his consortium bid to take over Worcester

Steve Diamond has unveiled his ambitious bid to take over the financial-stricken Worcester, who were suspended by the RFU from playing in the remainder of the 2022/23 Gallagher Premiership and will be automatically relegated to the Championship for next season.

The director of rugby, who was in charge last month when the Warriors defeated Newcastle in their final match before falling into administration, is looking to be chief executive underneath an investment board of owners that he preferred not to name until the bid comes before the RFU fit and proper owners test.

If given approval by England Rugby HQ, the new Sixways Village company would see Diamond backed by two non-executive directors, a long-time friend Mike Blood and ex-Leicester CEO Simon Cohen.

During a 15-minute slide presentation of his business plan over Zoom to a Thursday lunchtime audience of 25 journalists, Diamond admitted he had no issue that Worcester will be automatically relegated, accepting that a penalty had to be paid for the financial problems they ran into under the previous owners, Colin Goldring and Jason Whittingham.

He reckoned it could take three to four seasons in the second tier for Worcester to get their new business approach right to enable them to return as a competitive Premiership club, but he believed that time in a league where he explained just four teams have a playing budget in excess of £1million would be adequate for where the Warriors currently find themselves.

#TOGETHER 6 weeks of graft for me is easy compared to 25 yrs of Cecil’s legacy pic.twitter.com/47cwY1zyjL

— Steve Diamond (@Steve_Dimes) October 27, 2022

“Sixways Village, that is what we are going to call it if we are successful in our bid with the administrators and DCMS,” said Diamond, who explained that the overall business would look to be activity at Sixways for more than 250 days of the year instead of a typical 16-game rugby season. “Worcester are one of the oldest clubs in the world. They have got a proud heritage… and have been at the top of the English game with the exception of four or five years for the last 25 years.

“They have had a proven track record of developing kids through their player pathways, women and men who have gone on to play international rugby. The modern operation was funded by Cecil Duckworth and until a month ago was a mainstay of the English Premiership, a staple of the Worcester community, and a massive loss to rugby as a whole.

“My goal and the goal of the investors I am involved with is to create a sustainable business and be able to compete back in the Premiership within three or four years and allow professional rugby to thrive in Worcester which is really important because sport is massive in the community.

“A highly experienced team of investors have joined me in what we feel will be an exciting project in the next five to ten years. The investment board is a local investor who has been a major sponsor at Worcester for several years and lots of other sporting organisations in the locality from south Birmingham down to Herefordshire. The other investor is a property developer who specialises in waste management who I have known for 25 years.

“Their names will remain in the background up until we go in front of the RFU, if we get that opportunity to go on the fit and proper Test. Myself, I’ll be on the investment board and I will also be the CEO. My two non-executive directors will be Mike Blood, a very experienced sporting lawyer based in Manchester. I played rugby with him for five, seven years when we were growing up. Mike is at the forefront of sports administration and law.

“And secondly but not least Simon Cohen, formerly a lawyer, a businessman and chief executive of Leicester Tigers for 15 years. Simon is coming on board with me to give me some guidance moving forward as we try to return Worcester to being a successful and profitable franchise.

“During the professional era, Worcester have always relied on a financial benefactor. The aim is to create sustainable organisations with the foundations built in the community, hence why it is important that we have got a local businessman as well as a national businessman to invest with myself. And it has got to be built around the community and academy graduates and selective recruitment from people like myself and the coaching team that I have earmarked.”

Switching to the prospect of Worcester returning to play in the Championship next season, Diamond continued: “For what has happened to Worcester, due punishment and sanction are required and the RFU have suspended us for this season.

“Looking back in the cool light of day, that is probably the right thing to do. A lot of businesses would be just throwing in the towel and starting up again so there has to be some sanction and relegation, I am prepared to take the relegation and to be fair it may take us two to three years to come back in the correct position where I want us to be where we can challenge to get back into the Premiership.

“I have had extensive conversations with people in the Championship, also Bill Sweeney (RFU CEO) and Simon Massie-Taylor (Premiership Rugby boss). I have delivered my plan to PRL and the RFU and I spoke to Bill Sweeney, who is in New Zealand, last night. He aid it was a very credible plan and would like to meet on his return from New Zealand to go through it in finer detail.

“Now is the time to enhance the Championship. There are only four clubs spending regularly over £1m and that is probably at the top end. None of those clubs currently meet the criteria with stadium etc (to go up to the Premiership). With ourselves going there and potentially Wasps, we have got a really good foothold to develop that competition over the next two to three years.”

Diamond, who stressed the importance of the Worcester academy and the women’s team, also explained he wants the creation of a buddy system where Premiership players surplus to requirement in the top flight due to the size of the squad can play in the second tier with a partner club rather than being left idle.

“The women are massively important. Andy Moss, who is the chairman of a local business, has helped fund the ladies to get through to January and hopefully if we are successful in our bid to take the club out of administration, there will be a huge investment into women’s rugby. We have got a great management team in there already and we would hope to enhance that. It is one of the quickest-growing sports in the world and we have a great setup.”

Diamond signed off his presentation by addressing the issue of development at Sixways. “If we think for any minute that this is about a property deal, which some people do think and I think the previous owners thought that, it’s not. It’s vastly secondary to what we are going to try and do over the best five to ten years.

“The development is last on our cards. There is obviously a huge plot of land there which has so many covenants over it that it’s on the public record from the local authority that the development would be looked at very, very closely and it has to have a development angle that will assist professional rugby moving forward.

“We are quite on that with the relevant investors that have come on board. It’s not a shoo-in, it’s going to be difficult. Simon Cohen is very important to me with his knowledge of building hotels at stadia, which he did at Leicester. There are various other projects that we are discussing with the local authority and the local authority have been very open and very keen to progress.

“As of today, I thought it was the right time for me to come off the fence a little bit and say, ‘This is what we are going to try and do’. I think I have got a vision that could revolutionise the Championship and make people in the Premiership look down and say, ‘Actually these guys are running a sustainable rugby business. How do we follow suit?'”