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The reassuring reply for fans worried about Gloucester's finances

The Gloucester crest at Kingsholm (Photo by Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

George Skivington has allayed fears about the financial future of Gloucester, last season’s ninth-place Gallagher Premiership club. The professional game in England has struggled coming out of the pandemic, with top-flight clubs Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish all going bust in a nine-month period during the 2022/23 season.

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This was soon followed by the September 2023 demise of the second-tier Jersey Reds, who folded despite being Championship champions at the time. These closures have since been followed by financial speculation regarding other clubs.

It is patter that has included murmurings about the future of Gloucester. Their latest accounts for the financial year ending in June 2023 emerged in March this year showing a turnover of £18,162,660, up from £17,035,172 the previous year.

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However, in a report section titled ‘Going Concern’, it stated: “The directors have prepared forecasts for the period to 30 June 2025 which indicate that subject to securing additional funding which the directors are confident in obtaining, and the continued support of the club’s sponsorship partners, bankers and shareholders, none of which is guaranteed, the company will have sufficient resources to enable it to continue trading until the end of the forecast period.”

It added: “The company along with other Premiership clubs are currently in negotiation with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in relation to the repayment profile of the loan received from Sport England during the covid lockdown.

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“Interest and capital repayments are currently scheduled to commence in September 2025. At the time of approving the financial statements there are no guarantees that the repayment profile will be adjusted.”

The section concluded: “The financial statements do not include any adjustments that would result from insufficient facilities being made available to the company.”

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Ahead of the 2024/25 campaign which begins with a home Premiership match versus Saracens on September 21, there has been some pessimism about Gloucester’s long term future despite the high-profile signings of the likes of Gareth Anscombe, Tomos Williams and Christian Wade.

Director of rugby Skivington insisted to RugbyPass that Gloucester were here to stay for the foreseeable future having spent more than a year cutting the fat on what it spends. “The club is setting itself up to be sustainable and you’d like to say bulletproof but to be able to survive any bumps in the road or, like we say not be reliant on just cash coming in all the time and being written off,” he explained.

“I know that is what Gloucester is doing. I am sure there are other clubs trying to do that as well, but I don’t know how other clubs are set up and they are all different. What I do know is we have spent a year at least maybe a bit longer trying to make sure we cut the fat and don’t have any outgoings that aren’t necessary.

“We have got sometimes a little bit of a spartan workforce in the background but we take a bit of pride in that and we work really hard to it. I can only speak for Gloucester but I think we’re probably ahead of most clubs on doing that a little bit longer getting that plan in place and acting on it.

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“Now we are in the position where we understand where we are but, as I say, from a Gloucester rugby point of view, I don’t think it is going anywhere even if there was another bump down the road.”

Skivington was due at Twickenham on Wednesday for the new-season Gallagher Premiership launch that was to be followed by an afternoon media briefing on the RFU’s new men’s professional game partnership.

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J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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