Exclusive: Rugby Players' Association rejects Premiership call for permanent pay cuts

Damien Hopley - Jan Kruger/Getty Images
Damien Hopley - Jan Kruger/Getty Images

The Rugby Players’ Association will reject calls from Premiership clubs to impose permanent pay cuts, The Telegraph can reveal.

With some clubs facing financial ruin, the news emerges as Gloucester do not expect training to resume until July, which means the league will not return before August at the earliest.

Premiership teams were hoping to maintain indefinitely 25 per cent salary deductions that were imposed soon after the league was put on hiatus on March 16 because of the coronavirus pandemic. However while the RPA accepted the need to impose temporary cuts in extraordinary circumstances, its board voted unanimously to reject those becoming permanent.

The RPA had come under increasing pressure since it emerged that a rival union was going to be set up by Ellis Genge, the Leicester and England prop, with several players unhappy at being forced to accept cuts or being placed on furlough.

However while Damian Hopley, the chief executive, was prepared to be flexible in the short term, he is determined to put his foot down in this instance.

His case has been helped by divisions within Premiership Rugby’s plan to collectively implement the cuts. Stephen Lansdown, the owner of Bristol Bears, last week told The Telegraph that clubs cutting wages would bring the league into “disrepute”.

That split in the league is evident in discussions over the salary cap with Worcester, Newcastle, Leicester, Sale, Gloucester and London Irish understood to be pushing for major reductions from the present £7 million limit.

Other clubs harbour concerns over the damage it will cause the league’s marketability, particularly with private equity company CVC recently coming on board as investors.

The return to training has to be agreed upon unanimously by all Premiership clubs with government approval.  "A return to training is now expected to be a month away," Bradley said in a statement on the Gloucester website.

"We expect that games will start to be played once training has been under way for a few weeks. How many weeks depends upon how quickly full contact training can resume, but we expect it to be between four to eight weeks."

The Lord Myners report into the Premiership salary cap revealed that the 13 clubs, including the team relegated to the Championship, lost nearly £89 million over two seasons.

However, if any permanent pay cuts are imposed, players would be entitled to walk away from their contracts with Japan rivalling France as a destination for English players such as George Kruis, Freddie Burns and Alex Goode.

To further add to rugby's current state of flux, Telegraph Sport understands that the professional leagues including the Premiership and Pro14 will be meeting with representatives from the Six Nations and Sanzaar Unions (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina) in talks organised by World Rugby this month to discuss aligning the global calendar.

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend on Saturday backed the move to combine two international windows. "I really hope we do get an aligned calendar," Townsend said. "My preference is to move to the summer to align with the southern hemisphere and have a really competitive element in the October and November window, as we do with the Six Nations.

"It seems like there is a will from a lot of people to make that happen. It would almost be like a World Cup, but you are flying to the southern hemisphere countries and then coming back to host southern hemisphere teams."