Premiership Rugby 'gold rush' as clubs scramble to meet deadline for new salary cap rule

RPA chief Damian Hopley believes there is a "gold rush" under way in the top-flight of English rugby
Getty Images

English rugby is being gripped by a “gold rush” of contract talks as Premiership clubs try to renew players’ deals by this Thursday’s deadline.

Premiership clubs agreed last week to reduce the league’s salary cap by £1.4million next season.

However, the agreement included a new rule stating that only 75 per cent of contracts signed before June 18 would count for the first season.

That means any new contracts that are in place before the deadline on Thursday will be honoured in full, with only 75 per cent of those salaries counting towards the cap that season.

“It is like a gold rush in a way,” Rugby Players' Association (RPA) chief executive Damian Hopley told Standard Sport.

“The scramble to get the best players’ signatures and tie them in by that June 18 deadline, because that then takes a quarter off the salary cap for next year.

“I am sure the actuaries and the ‘Moneyball’ men at each club are working through this night and day.”

Plenty of talks are due to take place this week, with the RPA offering to help players who want contractual advice.

The tight deadline for deals and the emergence of the new “loophole” has now magnified the financial gulf between clubs in the Premiership, with some able to offer players long-term deals with more security.

“We have talked about the arbitrary, artificial nature of that deadline, but even if you push it back two weeks you are still going to have the same issues,” Hopley added.

Clubs have until Thursday (June 18) to agree deals with players and take advantage of a new salary cap rule
Getty Images

“You have moved from one sort of loophole-driven salary cap to a new one. Already we are starting to see the emergence of the haves and have-nots, and we are starting to understand the impact of this new salary cap as agreed last week. It is out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

The fallout from the whole situation is unlikely to be seen until after Thursday, but the RPA have vowed to support any player in need of contractual or legal advice after the deadline.

“We don’t know until Thursday has been and gone what the trends will look like,” Hopley said.

“But obviously it could just be a handful of players who haven’t signed or aren’t happy. Regardless, we would be there to make sure we are representing them and moving this forward.

“We are on calls to the players. We had three calls to playing squads over the weekend to make sure they are fully appraised of what their rights are.

"We had more last week, we have more got more in the next couple of days to work through too.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in