Rugby team Worcester Warriors is no more after merger

WORCESTER, England (AP) — The Worcester Warriors rugby team is no more. The English club was placed in compulsory liquidation and therefore automatically relegated from the Premiership last year while being pursued for unpaid tax. It was set a deadline of Feb. 14 to provide evidence that it met conditions to compete in the second-tier Championship. One of the men who led a consortium that took over Worcester has told the BBC the Warriors will be renamed Sixways Rugby and will instead be merging with fourth-tier team Stourbridge. Jim O’Toole of ownership group Atlas says “the sad fact of life is that the Worcester Warriors brand and the Worcester Warriors business is gone.”