WRU: Wales' sport body 'cannot investigate sexism allegations'

The acting chief executive of the body that develops sport in Wales said it had "no formal knowledge" of allegations of sexism at the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).

Sport Wales' Brian Davies appeared alongside chair Baroness Grey-Thompson at a Senedd committee on Wednesday.

The committee heard the body is not set up to hear from whistleblowers, and has no power to investigate allegations.

It follows a BBC programme detailing a series of allegations.

Baroness Grey-Thompson said she would like to tell sports governing bodies what to do, but that is not Sports Wales' role.

The former boss of Welsh women's rugby told BBC Wales Investigates that a male colleague said in front of others in an office that he wanted to "rape her".

Amanda Blanc, who quit after two years as Wales' Professional Rugby Board chairwoman in 2021, recalled in her leaving speech an elected WRU member had made misogynistic comments in public, including that "men are the master race".

The programme saw the resignation of the chief executive and the setting up of an independent panel - backed by Sport Wales - to be led by a former judge.

Brian Davies told the Senedd's culture committee that while they were "aware of some things that were in the public domain", "in terms of the specific allegations that were aired... nothing had been raised directly".

"A bit of what was in the public domain was been a hearsay, a bit of rumour, a bit of gossip there."

Brian Davies said Sport Wales is not a regulator

Asked by Conservative MS Tom Giffard if any investigative work was done to get to the bottom of what was in the public domain, Mr Davies said they are "not an investigatory body".

"We're not established in that way. We have no legislative power."

Alun Davies, Blaenau Gwent Labour MS, accused Mr Davies of giving a "conditional response" and not being clear.

He put it to him that Sport Wales were aware of the difficulties in the WRU: "Your answers was so conditional to make me feel that Sport Wales corporately knew or had good reasons to suspect there were serious cultural problems in the WRU and you chose to take no action on that".

"I refute that," Brian Davies said in response, adding: "We had no formal knowledge."

Baroness Grey-Thompson said she would like to tell public bodies "what to do"- "but that's not the role"

Chair Tanni Grey-Thompson said she would "absolutely" like to go and tell any large governing body to "nail equality, diversity, inclusion, stamp out the sexism".

But she said Sport Wales has the ability to "ensure that public money" given to sport "is spent in an absolutely proper way".

"We can't tell them what to do. Would I like to? Yeah - but that's not what the role is."

Brian Davies said Sport Wales was "not set up to receive whistleblowing", although he said all the sports councils in the UK "are set up in the same way".

He added told the committee Sport Wales does have an influence on "hard governance" - the structures the organisation is run.

The acting chief executive said it was "such a shame that the October" annual general meeting failed to pass a recommendation for an independent chair.

An extraordinary general meeting is planned on 26 March to push through governance changes.

Wednesday's hearing was the second by the committee on the issue.

Earlier this month Nigel Walker said there were "warning signs" of sexism in Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) but the organisation was "in denial".