The NFL-style leadership Wasps want introduced into Premiership

Wasps CEO Stephen Vaughan has called for an overhaul in the way Premiership Rugby are allowed to run the English top flight. The call comes after the Coventry-based club ceased trading on Monday to leave officials sifting through the wreckage of a disastrous few weeks in which the tournament was reduced from 13 to eleven clubs.

Worcester Warriors were first to topple over financially and their plight was mirrored by Wasps slipping into administration to leave both clubs contemplating Championship level rugby if they are eventually taken over and are back in business by the time of the 2023/24 season.

For Premiership Rugby, the development has been a hammer blow to its reputation. So many claim that the top flight in England is the best club tournament in the world and while the entertainment on the field of play has been mostly exceptional across the opening weeks of the 2022/23 campaign, the financial state of play has been ruinous and there is no guarantee that other clubs won’t fail.

The damaging situation has left Vaughan, who is among the 167 people made redundant on Monday by Wasps’ administration, sifting through the wreckage and he has named the one thing he would most like Premiership Rugby to do now that their league has lost a second club in a matter of weeks.

“What I would really like is for Premiership Rugby to have real accountability with regards to the leadership group to make decisions,” said Wasps chief Vaughan in a local area BBC CWR radio interview.

“Currently the way it is set up – and it is no fault of Premiership Rugby – it is set up where the owners of all of the clubs are able to make decisions on all of the other clubs and that is just not right. A bit like the NFL and the NBA, who have a commissioner, that would be essential so decisions can be made for the greater good.

“For an amazing institution like Wasps with some really great talented people, to not be able to continue when there are people who want to invest but they couldn’t because particular parts of governance or parts of contracts don’t allow that to happen that is pretty difficult to deal with because it won’t just be Wasps.

“It’s Wasps today, Worcester a couple of weeks ago and there will be other clubs in the future and we need strategic governance that allows the CEO of Premiership Rugby to make decisions.”

Vaughan also shed light on the difficult conversation he had to have with the Wasps players and staff on Monday, telling them in person that the club had financially gone to the wall. “There were a lot of mixed emotions in there. A massive sadness from all of us and I certainly didn’t want to be having this conversation with anybody, but the past had caught up with us.

“We have been trying everything we can to try and get a deal over the line, to get this fantastic club to continue its journey, but we have been timed out at the moment so lots of tears in there, lots of very, very upset people and very understandable.”