USA Rugby is not out of the woods just yet, but the trees are a little less densely packed now that the NGB's reorganization plan has been approved by its creditors and the Delaware Bankruptcy Court has signed off.

But it wasn't easy. Two entities—National Collegiate Rugby and promoter Bill Tatham—lodged objections to the plan. They then signed off when USA Rugby made some adjustments. 

While USA Rugby did get past two objections to their reorganization plan, it wasn’t without the NGB being forced into some changes.

NCR’s objection came down to this: They took issue with USA Rugby seemingly including NCR teams in the NGB’s future membership roles. NCR is running its own membership process and is acting independent of USA Rugby. Therefore, stated NCR in its documentation, USA Rugby shouldn’t be claiming they will be receiving membership funds from NCR teams and players in the future.

USA Rugby changed the wording of its plan, excluding NCR, but they did not appear to significantly change their expected membership list. Note, as USA Rugby CEO Ross Young stated in his interview with the RuggaMatrix America podcast, you can be a NCR member and a USA Rugby member at the same time (you just have to pay dues to both).

NCR also wanted to opt out of a release of liability on USA Rugby. Basically this meant they did not want to promise not to sue. NCR officials point out that USA Rugby used NCR dues money that should have been funneled back to NCR for administrative expenses—that could be basis for a breach of contract claim. NCR officials said they aren’t interested in suing, but a university or a team might be, and they didn’t want to sign anything to prevent that.

Tatham, meanwhile, represented by his company Professional Rugby, also asked out of the release. He also wanted language in the plan that specifically said that Professional Rugby would retain the rights and intellectual property that it had paid for with the rights fee Tatham's company has been paying annually for about 10 years. 

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Once USA Rugby made those changes, everything else went on as planned.

But ... it's not over.

As Young said on RuggaMatrix America, there is still work to do to actually execute the reorganization. USA Rugby needs income, specifically it needs membership income. The membership system is slowly being brought online, but in the end the NGB will need teams that can at least train to sign up.

Community Agreements Signed With USA Rugby, Dues Levels Approved

At the same time, employees, including some who have been working on reduced pay, have to work even harder to make sure bills are paid and getting plans in place.

"The next step is ... we reassess where we're at with regard to roles and responsibilities and absolute priorities for different staffmembers, but we're also cognizant of the fact that there are so many elements we don't know ... we're not just going to steamroller ahead," Young said in the podcast (listen to the full show below).

There's a short-term plan and long-term plans needed as well when the membership cycle comes back.

"While that's happening just look a little bit further down the road as well in how we give the staff better opportunity to define their own roles and responsibilities moving forward for the day-to-day reorg."

Basically that means that USA Rugby employees sometimes know best what is needed, rather than just following orders from on high.

Young also praised the outgoing boardmembers for helping (and it's worth noting that the boardmembers who really dragged USA Rugby into this mess all left some time ago).

"The way the board have knuckled down, all those boardmembers, and the amount of work that's been carried out has been incredible," said Young.

Big changes, then, will come.

"We were trying to do too much and ended up not doing anything particularly well," added Young. "As we separated out the different community groups we're being very clear on what we're federalizing, if you like, or decentralizing.We want to be very clear on the services we provide ... our main role is to provide the tools for the community to go out there and do what we all want to happen."

USA Rugby will separate the bank accounts of the different national teams, and Young said those teams will have to follow those budgets because if they run out of money, they may have to curtail activities. Young was definitive about that.

Young was also clear about USA Rugby's relationship with NCR. 

"Ultimately, NCR want to go off on their own and become an overarching, stand-alone entity, then they're going to have to do that as an unsanctioned entity, which has a number of knock-on effects," said Young. "And there's nothing stopping them from doing that ... I think we have to be responsible to the bigger picture ... We'll certainly continue to have discussions with them, but ultimately, you know,t here are different levels of membership for us as an organization. If they choose not to be a part of that, that's their prerogative."

It's a revealing interview with the CEO at a crucial time.

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