When Worcester Warriors Women abruptly withdrew from Premiership Women’s Rugby last October, Stef Evans made a promise to herself.
The Canadian forward had a modest contract at Sixways but was no longer ready to play for free when he started trying out for a new club.
“I can’t risk ruining my life all the time just to play rugby,” says Evans, who has played in the women’s top-flight league for five years. “I’m happy to play for net zero. But I promised myself I wouldn’t play for debt anymore.”
Worcester were one of the founding teams of the Premier 15s (renamed PWR at the start of the season) and one of the first women’s clubs in the league to pay players, but club owners Cube International unexpectedly withdrew their financial support – and a 10-year business plan for the team; A few weeks until the 2023-24 season.
The outlook looked positive when the Worcester-based business was taken over in early 2023. The company’s chairman, Andy Moss, even made a bold prediction that the women’s team could be commercially viable within the next five years. Ten months later, Moss made the “emotionally challenging decision” to withdraw the team from the restarted Premier League days before the league was due to start.
Four months after the dark evening when the team was suddenly brought from training and broke the news, Telegram Sports It brought together five former players affected by the club’s collapse.
They are all keen to share their stories in the hope that this saga never happens again, and are calling for greater scrutiny of the business models required to manage top-level women’s teams.
Worcester were initially unsuccessful in their bid to become part of English rugby’s premier women’s competition in December 2022 due to ongoing uncertainty over the sale of the men’s club. They were readmitted three months after Moss took over and prepared his ambitious business plan.
“They went through two financial checks, came on Monday night and decided they couldn’t afford us anymore,” says Siobhan McCarthy, who joined Worcester two seasons ago.
The highly-rated Irish second-row player has a three-month trial contract with Gloucester-Hartpury but is yet to earn any playing time this season. “HE [Moss] “They signed a 10-year deal with PWR and just said, ‘Yeah, that’s it.'”
Evans agrees, nodding in agreement. “So what is this process? [around owner checks] And is it being changed?”
A Rugby Football Union spokesman said: “Cube International has provided the RFU with a business plan proving its ability to fund the Warriors Women’s team. Cube decided to withdraw the team from the league due to changing business priorities, not funding issues. “With the men’s team taking over, Cube’s support has enabled the Warriors Women’s team to continue its operations.”
Moss has been contacted by Telegraph Sport for comment. He told the BBC after the news broke last year that the women’s team was “not financially viable” and that “the support for that is not there”.
More than half of Worcester’s squad from last season are yet to sign deals with new clubs, including a handful of England under-20 players.
Laura Keates, who won the 2014 World Cup with England and is considered one of the best tight ends English women’s football has produced, is among those without a contract.
“We had 23 players who would play regularly in the Premiership,” says Keates, frustration clear in his voice. “Whether or not they get game time is one of our shared greatest disappointments. PWR and the Rugby Football Union talk about growing the women’s game but in reality you’ve lost 40-odd players.”
Keates, 35, was recovering from a serious knee injury she suffered at the 2022 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand when the club collapsed. The qualified dentist was able to access a hardship fund through the Rugby Players’ Association but joining a new club proved problematic due to his dental foundation year being at a clinic in Malvern.
“It was incredibly difficult,” Keates says. “I return to Worcester a few days a week because this is where our physiotherapy is carried out. “This place is just a shell of a place.”
Evans’ journey back and forth to his new club, Leicester Tigers, is modest compared to some of his other former team-mates; Winger Vicky Laflin makes the four-and-a-half hour round trip to Ealing Trailfinders after a “stressful” spell. On the eve of the new season, it’s time to find a new club.
The former England Under-20 player has been at Sixways for six years and has found last-minute negotiations with other clubs “stressful”. “You can’t swap or negotiate,” says Laflin, who spent six years of his elite rugby career at Sixways. “Take what you are offered and be grateful because all the clubs were full.”
PWR excluded Worcester players from the £190,000 limit in a bid to encourage other clubs to accommodate them. But many ended up volunteering or, in McCarthy’s case, on trial contracts. Very few people earn the salary they do in Worcester.
Keates, who still wants to add to the Red Roses cap of 62, claims better regulations on how much England players can manage within the salary cap could help.
“Your international English players get paid pretty good wages for England and then they get the top amounts from their clubs,” says Keates. “You can be a Welsh national team player or a Scottish international and an Irish national team player and I’ve heard of some teams where they don’t get paid anything. We talk about growing the game and everyone having equal shares, but that’s a crazy way to have a league.
“They want to develop British rugby for women; You have a multi-layered system where some people are paid more and some people are paid less. How does this allow the game to grow equitably?”
Meanwhile, non-English players are also feeling the pressure. Former Worcester backline and Portugal forward Sara Moreira made the drastic decision to sign for Sale to protect her rugby career. He now makes the five-hour drive north from Worcester to the club three times a week.
“I am a self-employed tiler,” says Moreira. “Luckily I’m working for someone at the moment, but that means I can only work for three or four days. Other days are half days, which makes this not possible.
“I wanted to start growing my business on my own, but it’s hard to tell anyone. ‘I will come and tile your house, but I can only work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.’ “I had to make a lot of changes, which put me in a financially unstable situation.”
As PWR progresses on the path to professionalism, Evans, Keates, Laflin, Moreira and McCarthy do not want to share their stories in vain. “That’s the saddest part of this whole thing,” Evans says. “It feels like the investment of a lot of people who have spent years of their life playing, working, building this league — my investment — wasn’t protected.” The group insists history cannot repeat itself.