Bruce Craig on 16 years at the Rec: calls for European reform, Premiership growth and Rec 2.0
Bruce Craig, co-owner of Bath Rugby, spoke to the Guardian on 16 October 2026 about his 16 years at the Rec and set out priorities for European competition and the English Premiership. He discussed stadium plans, structural change in club rugby and his view of recent continental reforms.
Craig described his time at Bath as “a long haul”, saying: “It has been a lot more difficult than I anticipated. Anyone would have wanted it to happen a lot quicker than it actually has. But anything worthwhile is difficult and takes a long time.” He added that the experience has taught him about the inner workings of professional rugby — “I’m not the new young buck on the block I was a few years ago, I’m the old wily fox now” — and likened the business to a “four-dimensional” puzzle, noting “In business … it’s a lot easier to get the outcomes.”
He said his persistence had begun to pay off after Bath claimed their first league title for 29 years in 2025 and outlined plans for a city-centre redevelopment. Work on the Rec 2.0 — a refurbished stadium beside the Avon funded by Craig and his billionaire co-owner James Dyson — will begin next spring, and Craig said: “We’re starting in March and we should finish by September 2028 when we’ll hand over the facilities the club should have. That’ll be amazing.” When asked about potential names he laughed off the idea: “I’ve never been that sort of person.”
Craig criticised recent proposals for the Champions Cup, saying the suggested home-and-away ties in the last 16 and quarter-finals of a revamped 16-team competition risked producing “dead rubbers”. “I’m not sure it’s the ideal. The second games could be dead rubbers. If you want real jeopardy you’ve got to go to straight knockout. Then every one of those games would be top notch.” He also cited the mothballing of the proposed World Club Championship as an irritation.
Acknowledging past missteps, Craig accepted there were errors in previous reforms: “The big error was trying to go to the Champions League scenario [involving multiple partner sponsors]. But that didn’t transpire and that was an error. It was tried but not everything works. And then dropping down to eight weekends and everyone not playing each other in their pool … I just think it’s lost something. Where it is now is not doing it for anyone.” At the same time he maintained that the initial decision to move competition ownership away from unions was correct: “The initial change was absolutely right. I fundamentally believe Europe should have been owned by the three leagues and not by unions. With unions and clubs you’ve got two different species trying to find the same path. It’s a club competition.”
On the alignment of the three leagues, Craig warned that action was needed: “By the end of the year I think there needs to be a direction of travel between La Ligue Nationale de Rugby, the United Rugby Championship and the Prem. For the moment I don’t think there’s commonality on anything. We really need to get a right answer because otherwise it just doesn’t work with punters, commercially or TV-wise. It needs resolution.” He said the Premiership could be strengthened by fresh investment — with Newcastle Red Bulls and Exeter’s new American backers Black Knight already involved — and argued that a higher salary cap would follow once a critical mass of corporate owners was reached: “For these billionaire corporates and individuals, £6.4m is nothing. It’s not even change. So once you get to a critical mass in terms of a corporate objective, it’s like: ‘Hey, guys, let’s go.’ We want to be the best league in the world.”
Craig advocated expansion of the Premiership to 12 clubs and welcomed the idea of involving Welsh regions if they could be privately owned: “I think we absolutely need 12 teams. And there are certainly advantages to the Welsh if they can sort their situations out. They would have to be private clubs, so for example Cardiff would have to be spun off [from Welsh Rugby Union ownership]. But the advantages are huge for Welsh rugby and I think it would be good for the Prem. You’ve got the rivalry, the tribalism, the proximity, the travel. Tick, tick, tick, tick.”
On governance and motivation, Craig said he wanted a different structure for the top tier of English club rugby: “There should be a company running the commercial and sporting side of England professional rugby. I do think in the next five years we will see a big sea change in English club rugby.” He rejected press caricatures of wealthy owners, saying: “I’m ‘a wealthy owner with private jets’ and that sort of stuff. I mean, that’s bullshit. First and foremost, I invested a lot of money into rugby because I love it. It’s my passion and that’s what I love doing.” He added: “I want rugby to be much more widely distributed in the world and for many more people to play the game, because it’s up there with the best sports in the world. I just don’t think it’s set up structurally to get to where it could be. Hopefully we can change that, bring more investment in and then get more powerful forces to drive it on.”
Craig, 63 and a one-time scrum-half from Chew Magna, remains candid about remaining obstacles, describing shortsightedness and small-mindedness among some in the game as “probably the biggest problem in rugby still.” His remarks came as Bath prepared to begin European pool play against Montpellier.