Worcester Warriors to avoid £8m in payouts by rebranding as ‘Sixways Rugby’

Worcester Warriors will be killed off and be rebranded as “Sixways Rugby”, meaning their new owners avoid having to pay out up to £8 million owed to former employees.

Atlas, the consortium that bought Worcester and Sixways Stadium, has decided not to bring the Warriors — who were thrown out of the Gallagher Premiership after the club’s collapse in September — back to life and will not play in the second-tier Championship next season.

Instead, it plans to partner with the fourth-tier side Stourbridge RFC, and create a new team to play at Sixways. The Stourbridge members will vote on this on Friday.

It means that hundreds of rugby creditors who were employed by Worcester Warriors — from the England centre Ollie Lawrence downwards —