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Premiership salary cap rise will stop English players heading overseas Premiership salary cap rise will stop English players heading overseas
(35 minutes later)
Increasing the Premiership’s buying power will stop England’s top players heading overseas after Rugby World Cup 2015, according to club executives. Efforts to prevent England’s leading players going overseas after next year’s Rugby World Cup have begun in earnest with the decision to raise the Premiership salary cap for the second successive year. From next season the maximum figure will be £5.5m, a rise of £500,000, with the clubs also permitted to employ a second marquee player from overseas whose wages will be deemed to fall outside the cap.
Premiership Rugby’s chief executive Mark McCafferty believes a second salary cap hike in as many years will help English clubs keep pace with big-spending French and Japanese teams. The English clubs still have a long way to go before they can match the spending power of the major French sides but the agreement, set to be ratified at a board meeting on Wednesday, is smartly timed. It is intended to give the top English sides the best of both worlds, giving them a better chance of hanging on to their established Test players whilst also allowing them to poach high-profile players from rival leagues.
The Premiership clubs will vote in a £500,000 salary cap rise for next season in a board meeting on Wednesday. The second marquee player must be new to the Premiership or have not appeared in the competition for at least 12 months. That, in theory, could make it easier for a highly-rated player such as Steffon Armitage to return to English rugby if he chooses to move on from Toulon. To help promote homegrown talent, however, up to £400,000 in extra credit will be made available to those clubs selecting English-qualified talent. The current figure is £240,000 per season depending on the number of players aged under 24 in a club’s first-team squad. That age limit will now cease to apply.
The board will also allow each squad to have a second marquee player for 2015-16 – to be recruited from overseas and not have played in the Premiership for at least 12 months. The increases reflect both the improved television deal with BT Sport as well as the recognition that a successful World Cup campaign could dramatically increase the market value of certain individuals. Mark McCafferty, chief executive of Premiership Rugby, was also keen to highlight the collective desire to improve the league’s quality and to retain as much English talent as possible.
Premiership clubs can already nominate one marquee player in their squad, whose wages are excluded from the salary cap constraints. “England and the clubs are getting stronger because of this commitment to the development of world-class England players,” he said. “We have more than 70% of match-day squads qualified to play for England and we want to maintain this to ensure England is in great shape not only the 2015 Rugby World Cup but also for 2019 and beyond. The rise in the salary cap will help our clubs retain the best English players.
McCafferty is confident the moves will help keep England’s leading players, such as Courtney Lawes and Joe Launchbury on home soil. “We are also 100% behind the RFU’s policy of only selecting players from the Aviva Premiership. The development of the salary cap is also another big step towards helping the England team and head coach Stuart Lancaster.”
“The number of England qualified players in Premiership rugby is at record levels and we want to push those numbers even higher,” McCafferty said. So far only the Armitage brothers and Toby Flood from among the ranks of established English Test players have chosen to ply their trade in France. Lancaster remains adamant that players based outside England will only be considered “in exceptional circumstances” but England are understood to have made a request to the International Rugby Board to clarify the situation regarding Armitage, recently named in an enlarged French national squad. Under a qualification loophole created by rugby’s renewed Olympic status, he could be eligible to play for Les Bleus in next year’s Six Nations if he first represents France at sevens.
“We have more than 70 per cent of match-day squads qualified to play for England and we want to maintain this to ensure England is in great shape not only at the 2015 Rugby World Cup but for 2019 and beyond. Last night the International Rugby Board’s chief executive Brett Gosper made clear Armitage’s eligibility for France was by no means a certainty. “The rules are reasonably clear but we’ll be seeking further clarity about the interpretation of those rules from our regulations committee over the next few weeks.”
“It is an essential part of our league and the strength of our system. A verdict is likely to be reached early in October when the aforementioned committee are due to meet in Singapore. Gosper stressed that “flagrant abuses of the spirit of the law” would not be permitted.
“The rise in the salary cap will help our clubs retain the best English players.
“We are also 100 per cent behind the RFU’s policy of only selecting players from Premiership rugby and the development of the salary cap is another big step towards helping the England team and head coach Stuart Lancaster.”
Premiership Rugby increased the salary cap to £5m for the present campaign, reflecting rising revenues.
This increase will come into effect next season, with the cap’s base rate reaching £5.1m – but up to £400,000 will be available in extra credit.
The academy credit system provides a maximum £240,000 per season varying on the number of home-grown players aged under 24 in each club’s first-team squad.
Premiership Rugby will remove the age restrictions on these payments as well as extending their limit.
Lancaster’s policy of refusing to select overseas-based players for England has helped keep the majority of talent in the Premiership.
The England head coach has only lost Steffon Armitage and Toby Flood to the riches on offer in France.
Flood left Leicester for Toulouse last summer aware he was ending his England career.
Armitage’s situation is entirely apposite, especially given his decision to chase selection for France despite holding five England caps.
McCafferty and Premiership Rugby believe English clubs must retain the scope to offer competitive deals to the world’s best talent.