New finger in the pie at Cardiff

When the rugby union season kicks off in earnest on Saturday it will herald a new era for the sport. Few strongholds symbolise the professional age better than Cardiff, where the most famous club in the world are about to be taken over by a multi-millionanaire. Tim Glover talked to him

It should be the best of times but it could be the worst of times. The professional rugby season kicks off next weekend with the bedrock of the domestic game, the Five Nations' Championship, on the verge of dissolution. Many of the players, with cheques burning holes in their pockets, have unwisely given up their day jobs.

"The expenditure of leading clubs is going to be 10 times what they experienced before," Peter Thomas said. Some clubs will not survive the trauma. Others, like Cardiff, one of the most evocative names in the history of club rugby, have a vision and ambition. "Quite simply our aim is to become the top club in Europe," Thomas said. As he is about to buy the club he has a vested interest.

At an extraordinary general meeting on Thursday, members are expected to approve a plan to make the club a limited company with Thomas putting in pounds 1.02m for a 51 per cent stake. "First and foremost," Thomas said, "we're absolutely committed to the success of Cardiff Rugby Club on the field." This is reassuring news to some die-hard members, or even Dai- hard members, who were worried about the club being sold down the River Taff.

The management committee now appears to be satisfied that the deal is in the best interests of the club. "If you like, it's a business arrangement on a non- commercial basis," one said. "It is not designed for anybody to make a killing but to preserve a tradition. Nothing will be lost from the club and we will not lose control."

It would be tempting to say that Thomas has a finger in every pie. He used to. He was born in Edinburgh, where his father was stationed during the Second World War. The family ran a bakery business in Merthyr and in 1970 Thomas launched Peter's Savoury Products: meat pies, pasties, sausage rolls etc. He had a staff of 1,400, four factories and 300 vans delivering to shops, pubs and clubs. Thomas the Pastry built it into the largest private company in Britain and about the only thing he didn't cook was the books. In 1988 he sold out to Grand Met for pounds 75m.

If money talks, Thomas is multi-lingual. "In the bakery and meat industries there have been four generations in the family over the last 75 years that have each started, developed and sold businesses," Thomas says proudly.

He put some of the bread from Grand Met into creating another company, Atlantic Property Developments plc in Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff. He bought property at Culverhouse Cross on the outskirts of the city and that has been inhabited by Tesco and a Copthorne Hotel. The Thomases also own Cardiff Airport which is handy when you have your own jet.

Unlike some of the entrepreneurs who have taken control of a number of leading English clubs, Thomas has not suddenly become interested in rugby because the game has gone professional. He joined Cardiff as a youth player more than 30 years ago and played for the club at hooker. A couple of years ago, when Cardiff had a bad team and an even worse record, Thomas was approached. "The team needed rebuilding and that required a financial investment," he said. With a position as the club's main benefactor, he has put in half a million pounds and underwritten bank guarantees.

One of his first moves was to recruit Gareth Davies, the former Cardiff and Wales stand-off and head of sport in Wales for BBC TV, as chief executive and he was also responsible for the homecoming of Jonathan Davies from rugby league. In the close season, Cardiff, pipped by Neath for the league championship and beaten in the final of the inaugural European Cup, signed Robert Howley (the best scrum-half in Wales) from Bridgend, Leigh Davies (the best centre in Wales) from Neath, Justin Thomas (potentially the best full-back) from Llanelli and David Young from Salford.

"The squad was strong anyway," Thomas said, "but we needed certain players to get the balance right. It is fundamental to the success of the club." Jonathan Davies, vice-captain and coach of the threequarters, has been in full training and at the age of 33 it is felt he still has something to show the teenager Lee Jarvis who was signed from Pontypridd at the end of last season.

Cardiff have a squad of 30 players and, with wages and bonuses, the annual bill will be in the region of pounds 1m. Thomas could be talking about his savouries when he repeatedly refers to the "quality of the product". "The players will be full-time professional athletes training twice a day every day instead of just Mondays and Wednesdays. The level of competition is going to be much higher."

All being well, Thomas envisages a 36- game season, not including international matches, but all is far from well. There is stalemate over England's unilateral decision to sell their Five Nations matches to Sky TV with the other home countries threatening the Rugby Football Union with exclusion. Nobody looks like backing down and at a gloomy meeting of the Welsh Rugby Union in Cardiff last Friday the prognosis was that by the end of the week the Five Nations will become the Four Nations.

Clubs, particularly in England and Wales, need the uncertainty resolved as quickly as possible. "England have been part of the championship for over a hundred years and we want them in, but it was never a single product for one country to sell," Thomas said. "Like most rugby people I desperately want it resolved amicably and I want to see England back at the negotiating table. It is clouding the whole issue."

One of the darkest clouds hangs over the proposed Anglo-Welsh Conference which is due to start on 11 September. The plan is for 24 clubs to play in four pools of six (three home and three away matches), building up to semi-finals and final. The fixtures are in place but a television deal and sponsorship is not. A pounds 17.5m contract with Sky has yet to see the light of day. On top of that, Heineken have yet to be replaced as sponsors of the Welsh leagues.

Thomas, who is also chairman of Wales' First Division Rugby Ltd, suggests that the Anglo-Welsh competition will go ahead as scheduled come what may. "There is a great bond between the English and Welsh clubs and we are absolutely together in our aims," Thomas said. "Of course, we need the income from television and sponsorship to meet our overheads and if that's not forthcoming there are going to be very serious problems for the clubs. We want to proceed with the approval of the WRU and the RFU but if we don't get that approval . . . the clubs are committed."

Thomas recognises that Cardiff cannot prosper on the field or off it simply through the Welsh league. That is why the European Cup, snubbed by England and Scotland last season, is another important playing field. "There is enormous strength in European clubs and the threat is from all sides," Thomas says. "In the professional arena it is no good thinking about small crowds and small stadiums. In the long term why not mirror the success of the Premier League? The World Cup is coming to Cardiff in three years' time and we have to compete at the highest level to match the southern hemisphere."

Meanwhile Cardiff, who are hoping to double their average gates this season to 10,000, have sold their land at Sophia Gardens for pounds 2.5m and last week bought 18 acres at Whitchurch from Cardiff High School Old Boys, a club they intend to use as a "feeder". A feeder club? That's rich, with Cardiff buying players from all over the place.

In the short term, Gareth Davies is less impressed with the European Cup. Cardiff play Munster and Milan at home and Wasps and Toulouse away. "It is a diabolical state of affairs," Davies said. "There has got to be home and away in all games. Everything is done piecemeal. They're playing at it. We're all desperately fighting to make progress but there's always somebody holding you back."

Davies foresees a future for a small number of clubs with possibly the formation of a European super league. In the interim he thinks there will be casualties. "In the top division in Wales there will be about 360 players earning between pounds 20,000 and pounds 40,000 a year. A lot of people will be making money who shouldn't be. It's the same in England. Sums have been paid that are nowhere near the commercial reality." What really worries Davies, though, is the future of the Five Nations. "If England are out, the championship will be the biggest victim of professionalism. The recipe was just right. There was no overkill. I'm bloody bored with what's been going on in the southern hemisphere. There's been so much of it."

In throwing the game open, the International Board has a lot to answer for, but then so have bodies like the RFU who upped the stakes and demanded more and more of players, primarily to finance the rebuilding of Twickenham, leaving themselves vulnerable to television money. Peter Thomas might refer to it as pie in the Sky.

"Playing rugby is no longer a part-time interest and what has happened was inevitable," Thomas said. "The players had to get paid. It remains to be seen whether it's a good thing." But what about the old ethos of players mixing with fans in the clubhouse over a few pints? "I don't think that will go," Thomas said, "although less pints will be consumed."