Welsh rugby crisis: Cardiff purchase deadline extended beyond WRU informal meeting

Ospreys owners Y11 Sport & Media have an additional 30 days to negotiate their proposed takeover of Cardiff.

The initial exclusivity period to negotiate the deal has ended with the deadline extended by the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) until Wednesday 22 April.

It comes nine days after WRU president Richard Collier-Keywood faced a vote of no confidence at an extraordinary general meeting of the governing body.

Leading figures in one of the WRU’s regions – the Central Glamorgan Rugby Union (CGRU) – have received support to call the meeting.

Clubs will also vote on how to select the four council members on the WRU board, although a vote on current members was repeated last autumn.

The calls for an extraordinary general meeting came in the wake of the WRU’s controversial plans to reduce the number of professional Welsh teams from four to three by June 2027.

The WRU said in a statement that it had “confirmed that the owners of Ospreys Y11 are the preferred bidder to purchase Cardiff Rugby on 22 January with an initial 60-day period of commercial exclusivity to negotiate the terms set”.

The statement added: “A unanimous decision was taken by the WRU Board to initially select Y11 as the preferred bidder for Cardiff Rugby and negotiations have been ongoing since that time.”