The Guernsey Rugby Association (GRA) is to be wound up, it has been announced.
Rugby development director Steve Melbourne said the board had made the “incredibly difficult” decision due to financial pressures.
He said the GRA had delivered more than 800 hours of rugby coaching in schools each year which he believed had also taught ethics which had turned some pupils away from crime.
The head rugby coach had been given one month’s notice and Mr Melbourne had been given three, he added.
Mr Melbourne said: “The board made the decision because there was no guaranteed financial funding coming from areas of the rugby family.”
“Directors were putting their hands in their pockets to cover the costs of the GRA – you can only do that for a certain amount of time,” he explained.
He said the association had prided itself on delivering three hours of rugby coaching to schools in each academic day.
He said, as a consequence of the programme, the number of girls and women playing the sport had “grown significantly” over the past two seasons.
“Rugby is growing… but how long can it continue if you haven’t got that grassroot, pure community-based rugby going on?”
Mr Melbourne said the coaching had taught more than rugby to young people: “It’s wider than that… it’s the rugby values that we use when we’re working in schools.”
He explained: “Some of these young people fly right on the edge of going into criminality.
“We try to surround them with really good people with good ethics and values and bring them away from that.
“In certain cases we are made aware that we have saved these people’s lives.”
