WORDS OF JASON CRAIG, PRESIDENT C.R LA VILA, ABOUT THE SITUATION OF THE CLUB
Dear fans of Club Rugby La Vila
First of all I would like to thank each and every one of you for supporting our club and for being here when it really matters! This season has been the toughest season I have seen since the day I joined this club.
At the end of last season we were in a rather unsuspecting situation. We had won the league and relaxed in the knowledge that we were undoubtedly the best team in this country with the full backing of our town hall, local & regional government and our sponsors. As such we embarked upon an adventure in Europe for the first time in the club’s history! The Amlin Challenge cup will go down not only in our history books but that of the ERC’s as the best Spanish team to ever give our European counterparts a run for their money! I am extremely proud of our club and what we have been able to achieve on an international level.
Finishing 4th this year in the RENFE honors league is no small feat when you consider that we have won the SUPERCOPA, reached the semi finals of the COPA DEL REY, played in the AMLIN CHALLENGE CUP and still after today’s game we are in the playoffs to challenge for the league title; this year the top 6 teams in the regular league will battle it out for the top spot in Spanish rugby. This has only been done through the hard work, blood and sweat of our players, the insight of our coach Mark Hewitt & his support staff, all the people that work behind the scenes without earning a penny and of course our fans who support this magical sport.
From a sporting perspective we can all give ourselves a pat on the back, however financially we have suffered this year! Most of you will be aware that in a year where we had to ramp up our budget to compete in the European tournament without any support from the Spanish Federation, we have had our funding cut from the town hall, local & regional government and two of our major sponsors, not to mention that some of our smaller sponsors simply cannot afford to contribute as they themselves are struggling financially. It was always going to be a tall order. In the past the federation has supported the European challenging clubs by relaxing national transfer laws to be able to select players from other Spanish clubs and help be more competitive however this was not made available to Rugby la Vila! Still, I believe we have done incredibly well with what we had.
We expected much higher attendances at our games this year after the much debated reduction of the 5.00€ entrance fee as opposed to 10.00€. We were disappointed with the turnout for two out of the three Amlin cup games. This only shows us that we have a lot more work to do in years to come to develop and attract more people to watch our sport. We have since put the door entrance back up to 10.00€ because we simply had to as the season draws to an end. The players were informed back in February that after today’s game they will no longer be on contract as we cannot afford to pay them and we will not make them a promise that we cannot keep. So all the players that play the playoff’s will do so out of their love for the sport and because as a group of individuals they still believe they have it in them to win this league for the second year in a row!
These are tough times and I truly believe that Honesty and perseverance is the way forward. We will go into next year dragging a few debts from this year but with the peace of mind that we will have a stable budget from which to fight a good campaign in the Honours league and pay off what we owe at the same time. Our coach, Mark Hewitt, assures me that we will be able to put out a competitive young and vibrant team for next year, where we will be counting on the support of our up and coming players from our second team who after next weekend’s game will decide whether they win the regional Division 1 championship!
You will notice today a new Nº10 Adam Hinds, here on trial for next year. Rugby La Vila will be perusing players not necessarily with monetary remuneration but go back to the old school way of finding players jobs and accommodation to keep the costs down, whilst developing local Spanish players and keeping a few key leaders to bind the team. There will be several changes to the honors league next season, the first will be that it will no longer be sponsored by RENFE showing that even at the top, large institutions are affected by the global financial crisis, the second will be that there will be 12 teams in the league as opposed to 10. I believe this will not only bring us more rugby but it will give us a better chance of staying in the top half of the tables for next season.
From the club organization point of view it has been an incredibly tough year this year, Ignacio Davila became the president of the Valencia Rugby Federation and therefore I became President of La Vila. For those of you, who know me, you will know that I am the Managing Director of a foodservice company that pretty much takes up most of my time and taking on the presidency of this club was also a tall order! Historically this clubs decisions have been made by people who work for a living and help out by donating their time when they can, unfortunately this makes for little planning and reactive decision making!
Our plan for next season is to get more people who care about this club involved in it, not necessarily to make the decisions but to be forthcoming with ideas and feedback so as we can make decisions with enough time and energy to carry them out. We would also like to split the work across more people so that everyone has a little job to do rather than one person doing it all!
One of the things missing in this club is members and season ticket holders, so next season we will be starting a campaign to get more members and season ticket holders on board. Many of you have had great ideas and some we have already put into action, others, through lack of time, we have not been able to do, however I do write things down and they will get done next year! For example, one idea was for you our fans to be able to sponsor a pair of boots, the players water, the ball boys lunches, etc… and for next season we will be launching a “Sponsor a player” scheme where any fan can sponsor a player’s Dues -150.00€ a year- which includes their federation card and their insurance. The idea is to publish in our match day program and or have a board in our club house with a picture of our player next to their sponsor. This may not seem much money at senior player level, but this year some of the younger categories simply did not have the money to pay it! If they are not insured then they cannot even train! We hope that this will be a fantastic way for our fans to become a part of the club and solve a problem at the same time.
Some other initiatives are fundraisers: like the “Picnic in the Park” next Saturday (see attached notice and please buy your tickets at the ground today), auctions/raffles at each home game, as over the years this club has collected much memorabilia such as signed shirts and other rugby wares. Some of the mothers from the youth sides have come together to sell home made food at match day concentrations and championships to pay for their child’s bus expenses on away trips. The second team and the girl’s team have been working throughout the season doing different jobs at home games to pay off their dues and this will continue next year.
Rugby la Vila has signed 3 different sponsorship help programs with Generali insurances, Blacktower Financial Management and Catalunya Caixa, whereby if you take out a family protection policy with Generali, invest your savings with Blacktower and open up an account or contract any banking product with Catalunya Caixa then the rugby club will receive sponsorship in the form of commission. We are also in discussions with the town mayor to find out what- if any- funding will be available to us for next year and at the same time we are in negotiations with 3 very serious sponsors for next season, let’s hope we can sign one of them up! As you can see we are trying to be pro-active to make sure we keep not only one of the best teams in the country but one of the best clubs to play at, from the under 6’s through to our second team, girls team and veterans. The ground breaking work that Kiko Bou is doing with the Under 8’s category and Marta Valero and Hernan Quirelli with under 6´s category is not going unnoticed and part of next year’s plan is to have a full time manager in place who will be at the club at all times and who will be able to coordinate all the categories evenly. Until now the younger categories have been coached by first and second team players who cannot always be at their games due to their own fixtures we are actively looking for coaches who will be able to accompany the youth teams to their games and encourage them.
No matter how you look at it, we a have a fantastic club, and my job as president will be to make sure we are sustainable for the future because we want this club to be here in 10, 50, 100 years from now. We have great people coaching our youth categories, a veteran’s team who are making a name for themselves and a women’s team who are cutting their teeth in a new league whilst playing an open, fast and exciting style of rugby unseen before in Spain. Spanish rugby is a growing sport and it will be our job to nurture the up and coming generations, produce talented players for our national selections, introduce more fans to the sport and continue to be a reference for international rugby. We are currently organizing an introductory game for the start of next season where everybody is invited for free to understand all the rules of the game, from young players, parents, fans, people who have lived in Villajoyosa but have never been to the Rugby Club to like-minded people who want to know all there is to our sport.
Promotion is definitely the way forward and if you have any ideas that you think we should be doing then please put something in writing through our suggestions box, leave us a message on facebook or email us at oficina@rugbylavila.net. From an organization point of view I would also like to make sure we get things right this year in terms of our annual general meeting and make sure the correct procedures are followed, informing all of our members how this year has gone in numbers and present our projects and projections for next year (Potentially the last week in July). Together we will sustain a great club and enjoy years of good rugby.
I thank you for taking the time to read this and I look forward to seeing you all at our next home game soon.
Jason Craig
President Rugby La Vila