The final here at the Stade De France puts an international spotlight on a sport that world rugby says has grown 11 this year alone. But it comes at a time where the future of the professional game in england is unclear. The Premiership RugbyClub Worcester warriors have been suspended from all competitions after failing to meet a deadline set by the Rugby Football Union to provide a plan for their future funding. Worcester have debts of £25 million, including at least six million in unpaid tax. Matt kvesic goes over the line. Referee ive got to check. For me as a reporter understanding whats happened hasnt just been a professional journey. Its also been a personal one. My husband, matt kvecic, was one of the worcester warriors players who lost his job. It was tough, like, it was theres so much uncertainty at the time, which i think was, um, thats probably the toughest bit, but almost the worst bit was like there was also hope at the time as well. Rugby is a physical game. You dont want to be going into it with ifs and buts because thats when you get injured. Did we deep down really think it was going to come through . Probably, probably not with everything that was going on and the meetings we were having Behind Closed Doors in, you know, and with the premier rugby and the rfu, they wouldnt fill you with confidence, lets put it politely. The product on the pitch in the premiership is brilliant. That was the thing last year, it was absolutely brilliant, but what was happening off it was a mess. Its very strange seeing the place all quiet and a little bit run down, to be honest. Its quite sad, but well take away some really good memories. Graham kitchener enjoyed a long career in professional rugby, starting and finishing at worcester warriors, but it didnt end as hed hoped. Set myself in the last season in terms of could i get to 200 prem games . Could i play 300 sort of senior games, club games . And, you know, it kind of sounds silly, but all those were kind of sort of taken from me. Bad news, eh . The dreams over. Tv shellshocked players exchanging farewells this morning, just minutes after learning they and hundreds of staff had lost theirjobs. Im devastated. Im absolutely devastated. So i went to wasps probably a couple of weeks after worcester sort of went into liquidation. I think id only done a couple of days sort of training with them. And there was a meeting called in the afternoon and, like, the administrator and the owner came in and had a sort of chat with the lads and, you know, that was kind of basically it. The wasps former owner chris wright says the club has got a very bleak future now after going into administration. Its over and its the life and the passion and tradition for so many people that has gone, including myself. They always used to say, once a wasp, always a wasp. Yeah, i would say even that day it was a shock for me. Everyone was always positive about the name. Its a massive club with a massive history and it wasnt something we wanted, but i probably did expect us to. To. Maybe sort of a new owner to come in at some point. With two clubs folding, the english premiership had been rocked twice. Come the Season Finale at twickenham, the league thought it could look to the future but there was another shock to come. The latest deadline for london irish to prove that they have a future has passed with the prospect of them becoming the third Premiership Club within a year to be thrown out of the division. The challenging part is that we werent all together when we were told. Ultimately, its a human story, isnt it . Its sadness, and a lot of people were hurt very badly by not being able to know where they were going to be. And at the end of it all, it was, you know, a pretty harrowing time, really. I think one of the major impacts has been covid. Clubs in the premiership um, rely heavily on ticket sales. So the fact that the stadiums were empty, that revenue wasnt coming in. Youve then got the, as i say, the hospitality side, the merchandise. 0n the back of covid there hasnt been that influx of people back in the stadiums in the same way. And i think one of the major issues for rugby, which is very different to football, is that the Business Model is on its head. So the premiership isnt the lucrative entity, it is the rfu, whereas in football the fa is the underdog if we can term it like that. This is rooted way back when rugby went professional. It was the wild west back in � 95, � 96 when the game went pro, but there was no infrastructure, there was no planning, and rugby has led a pretty much hand to mouth existence right through the professional game. And, of course, the season just gone by weve seen the culmination of problems that have been brewing. It was not a surprise that a rugby club was in danger. It was a surprise how quickly and how devastating the fall of the clubs was. In 2019, Premiership Rugby was on a high. Ten clubs made a profit, helped largely by a £200 Million Investment from the American Firm cvc capital partners. But when the Covid Pandemic hit the very next season, the financial effect was catastrophic. The premiership thought it would protect itself by gradually expanding from 12 to 14 teams. But by 2022, every club that had filed its accounts reported a loss, and for three clubs, the debts became too much. The latest accounts for worcester warriors were filed for the Season Ending in 2020 and showed they made a loss ofjust over £4 million that season. For wasps, the situation was increasingly more serious. For the Season Ending in 2021, they made a loss of {7. 4 million with debts of 28. 6 million. And london irishs predicament was similar. At the end of the season 2021, they made a loss of 3. 4 million with debts of 28. 3 million. In rugby terms, the situation had become unsustainable. Im colin and this is my business partnerjason, and were the owners of the warriors. Injune 2019, Colin Goldring and businessmanJason Whittingham took on ownership of worcester warriors. When the club collapsed last year, it owed hundreds of suppliers, businesses, banks and Ticket Holders millions of pounds. Administrators have been carrying out detailed investigations into the clubs finances. A scathing parliamentary inquiry criticised the rfu for not intervening in goldings ownership of worcester after hed been barred by a solicitors disciplinary tribunal from being employed at any law firm without the regulators permission over significant financial irregularities at the Legal Practice which had employed him. They went on to say the game is in disarray at the top, suffering from inert leadership and the demise of the clubs was a stain on the reputation of the rfu and premiership by. Rug i think youve got to look at owners and directors explicitly were they fit to be in office . So i think rugby can learn a great lesson here in terms of it needs to strengthen its owners and directors test absolutely. It needs to make sure theres ongoing monitoring. There needs to be more transparency over accounts, the fact that worcester filed accounts late. Colin goldring and Jason Whittingham declined to take part in this programme. They told the bbc any allegations that they did not act in the clubs best interests were in complete ignorance of the facts and truth. The overriding feeling of the players was we were we were kind of hung out to dry a little bit. Could the rfu and premier rugby have done a little bit more to kind of, you know, help us and maybe get us through the season . The way they came across to us as players was that they, they werent as concerned as we felt they could have been. So i came in injanuary 2022, and at that stage the league was operating under the model where there was very little central Financial Information about clubs. There was no obligation of clubs to report. And so really what we were learning around compliances was either what they were choosing to give us. I think i would say that fit and proper tests are a moment in time and i think they need to be more regular. Its Notjust A Business here. This is a community asset. So this involves not only the livelihoods of the people that work there, but also has a big impact on those communities. So weve put in place Financial Monitoring panels. Players and fans of the clubs involved have told us they were hung out to dry by the prl and rfu. Do you think the prl could have done more . No, i think the situation was so severe, principally because of the circumstances the clubs were in after the pandemic, um, that there was very little that could have been done. And so i think, you know, with hindsight, what could have been put into place to control things a bit more was around financial control and monitoring and stuff that were doing now. But the reality was it was so severe what had happened to these clubs during the pandemic that even with those types of measures, their fate was pretty much sealed. You know, i think in hindsight, you know, clubs should have perhaps considered more around just totally mothballing things. But it wasnt just the mens Rugby Union Team at worcester that was affected. The warriors remained in the womens premiership, although things have been a struggle. It was just a massive, massive roller coaster. And i dont think at any point with the women, i thought, like i ever wanted to accept that it was done. You know, at the time when all this was happening, we had 1a players at the world cup, and i didnt want to be in a position where id have to ring them up and say, you havent got a club to come home to. After securing new financial backing, worcester warriors women had been determined not to follow their male counterparts. The womens game have got the opportunity to learn still. Were still relatively new, so weve got an opportunity to learn from the men. So we have to be really smart with how we grow and are sustainable. So there is no point in having this massive increase in Player Salaries if we havent got the money coming in. Just before this programme went to air worcester warriors women announced their external funding had ceased and they pulled out of this seasons league and cup competitions. In worcester is sixways. Its a rugby ground, an asset where rugby can still be played. Its something wasps dont have with a History Dating back more than 150 years and six times premiership champions wasps were also twice Champions Cup winners and parts of the european elite. The nomadic london club bought and moved to coventry� s ricoh arena in 2014. It was a bold relocation, part, funded by selling Investment Bonds to supporters. It didnt pay off. Theres you enjoying something tasty at the ricoh. It was almost like a bereavement. I wasnt expecting this. Wed been around wasps and supporting them in theirfamily for over 20 years, and then suddenly that was taken away. This was our weekends activity as a family. The ricoh was seen by us as a good move. Others didnt see it that way, particularly those that were wedded to london wasps, as it was, and had a proud heritage in that regard. For wasps, they had a big plan and it kind of looked as though it was going to work. And i would imagine the pandemic had a massive impact. Their Revenue Streams just dried up. We were first introduced in an advisory capacity by the board whod been looking to refinance because the fundamental problem they had, they had a huge debt pile. They had a debt pile of more than 100 million in the group, and they had the Retail Bondholders who were in for 36 million. They were trying to get a refinance. And despite all their best efforts, it didnt come to fruition. So in the end, they just ran out of cash. I think the move to the ricoh did contribute to, i would say, the demise of wasps. But i think it goes back earlier. When wasps were at adams park they did try to seek secondary rugby income by building a new stadium there. So there was a lot of investment and time put into that adventure, which unfortunately failed at the last hurdle. So i think theres always a balance with rugby clubs between being a Rugby Business and then also the non rugby income, which is important. What do you think were the main reasons for the collapse . Oh, i dont know. The bond was obviously a massive issue in terms of terms of wasps. The club took a massive gamble, didnt they, and coming up to the midlands from london. Everything with covid definitely did not help the situation at all. And is it funny, after a couple of years, people get loans and everything to get themselves through covid, that a couple of years later theres three clubs go within one year. So i think thats got a lot to do with it. I think we did really well as a sport actually in the time when you think about it. Were seeing the problem of trying to force a club to exist, force a name, force a location, force a fan base. Rugbys organic, rugby grows and rugby knows where it belongs. It knows where the club lives and where it exists. You try and force it, youve got to work bloody hard to make it work. London irish had a proud history in south west london, but like wasps, they became nomadic first sharing readings madejski stadium before moving in with Brentford Football Club in 2020. London irish club needs a home, youve got to have a home. They thought brentford would be the answer and it wasnt the answer. Big fees, big salaries were spent to keep them competitive. They couldnt generate their home there, so they went searching for it and it didnt work. 0wner mick crossan had been bailing out london irish for a decade. When his attempts to sell the club to a Us Consortium failed, the club folded. I dont know if we will all move on completely. Its a weird feeling to know that you look back in the following season, your team doesnt exist any more. Thats a really hard thing to put into place. During the Covid Pandemic, the uk government gave Emergency Loans to englands Premiership Clubs to keep them afloat. It loaded millions of pounds of debts onto the clubs, debts they have to pay back. Do you think that was the right thing to do . Because was it notjust delaying the inevitable . No, because they would have thought, well, these are clubs that are in a competitive league, theyve got tv rights, theyve got money from cvc. Rugby is a popular sport. The six nations generates huge interest. So clubs are stressed without a doubt, but they needed that money. They had to have it, or the game would have collapsed. I dont think we would have a premiership if those loans hadnt been put in place. Its an incredible pressure because theyre not insignificant amounts and i think the clubs didnt have any choice at the time. Without them, as i say, all clubs would have gone bust, but i think they quite quickly became a burden because then there is the further burden of having to repay those loans which are taxpayers money. We are looking to manage those things and so, you know, i see a positive outcome with all that. I think there was a stat, Something Like 90 of wasps fans arent watching rugby any more. From a sport that we need to create, we need to get more and more supporters in, weve potentially lost people. Rugby needs to realise its not as big as it thinks it is. Its going for global domination, but i think its overreached itself. But at the moment, its this mess no one knows. Seasons are uncontrolled. You pay your ticket, you dont see your star players. Its a mess. It needs to be tightened up. I mean, thats one of the things we are tidying up. So we want our International Players to be available much more for clubs, and clearly theyre not if youve got a calendar thats overlapping. So thats one of the benefits of having a ten team league. And so you can now say to fans that when you when you come and watch, the england stars will be there. We also need to balance that with having regional representation across the country. And so, you know, what exists in the premiership is a tempting premiership. But this is why we want to align ourselves much more with the championship. We need to bridge that gap, we need to make it smaller. But i firmly believe we need a nationalfootprint of elite clubs. Theres a whole stabilisation plan which, you know, really is a sort of four to five year period where were trying to get funding certainty. Some of that is our partnership with the rfu and how the professional game is managed and how we become much closer and deal with things much more as a sort of one entity approach rather than as two sort of sides of a coin. Funds have been lost to the game and the league cant afford that. What do you make of that . I think the sort of message to wasps and worcester fans is please stay loyal to your club and let us work on a system where we can get them back to topflight as soon as possible. I really want them to be part of the championship as soon as possible because theyre such great brands and theyre so important to the fabric of rugby in this country. And i think thats now part of the mission, is to is to try and resuscitate those brands and make them what they were again. In 1999, both richmond and London Scottish boomed briefly and then went bust. Clubs, including london welsh, have had to start again. None has made it back to top flight. So should Premiership Clubs be treated differently . Yeah, i think thats a really important point. Thats what needs to balance. Its the aspiration of clubs and its also that the system that exists, rightly or wrongly, around promotion, relegation and what happens when clubs go into insolvency. So that is a very difficult debate t