Pirates chief 'positive' new owners will be found

Cornish Pirates finished a club-high second place in last season's Championship

The new chief executive of Cornish Pirates said she is "positive" the club will have a new consortium of owners soon.

Funding from current owner Dicky Evans will run out at the end of 2024.

Players currently contracted to the club have break clauses in their deals in January should there be no new money.

But Sally Pettipher, who took over running the club last month, said talks are continuing over a change of ownership.

"At the moment, we're saying how many, how much," she told BBC Spotlight.

"In many respects, there's a perfect number because it's small enough for people to work together, but it's big enough to be risk-free, if something happens to somebody you want to be able to have a sustainable and secure future."

She added: "Dicky's legacy is extraordinary, but it is no gift to any club if one person pulls out, and so that's what we're doing now is we're putting together who and how much, how to make it fun for everybody - too many is unwieldy, too few is too risky.

"So we are putting that together and I cannot, in any way, shape or form say that's done, but I wake up in the morning and I feel very positive."

Pettipher succeeded Rebecca Thomas as the chief executive of the Pirates and has been Evans' chief of staff for the past three years.

Kenya-based Evans - who was knighted in the last New Year's honours list - saved Penzance & Newlyn RFC in the 1990s and his finances backed the transformation to Cornish Pirates and a rise to what is now the Championship.

In March 2022, Evans announced his 'sunset plan' to divest his interest in the club while funding it in the interim.

As that funding stream starts to come to an end Pettipher said Cornish Pirates represents a great chance to own a unique asset.

"This is one opportunity to own a cultural part of Cornwall and a fantastic rugby club.

"What I'm doing with the off-pitch team is making sure that every revenue stream that we can create and maximise to do our work off pitch, so that our work off pitch is of the same calibre as that fantastic work on pitch.

"Under Gavin Cattle and Alan Paver our rugby product is absolutely exceptional.

"The way that that team runs is going to be replicated off pitch - we've already raised our sponsorship income by 30% in two months.

"There are plenty of people who have the amount of money that together as a small gang you get to be the owner of this rugby club, and what an enormous joy and privilege that is."

Sir Richard 'Dicky' Evans was knighted by King Charles in July for his services to business, sport and charity both in Cornwall and Kenya

Meanwhile, there is still concern over the future of the second tier of English rugby.

A new Professional Game Partnership was agreed between the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premiership Rugby for the next eight years with each Premiership club getting £33m a season.

But Championship clubs – which are not a part of the new deal - will currently each receive their lowest ever sum of £133,000 this season.

Clubs were getting about £650,000 before the Covid-19 pandemic when their cash was cut to £150,000.

It is a sum which Pettipher said that if restored would end any concerns over the future viability of the team.

"The one big uncontrollable is the national governing body of our sport," she said.

"The very amount that they have taken away from every Championship club would make this club sustainable tomorrow.

"If you really want me to get emotional it's about how the RFU and Premiership have abandoned their second tier - I'm talking about the basic support of the different tiers of your game."

She added: "As a professional club we don't have access to the grant structure that amateur clubs have.

"As a second-tier professional club we have just been completely hung out to dry by £33m going to the 10 Premiership clubs and here we are left with £500,000 removed for one year during Covid [and] never reinstated, so of course that's completely pulled the rug out of your second tier."