No pay rise plans after record RFU profit

English rugby, which today announced a profit of £18.4m (€26.2m) for the last financial year, has no immediate plans to reward the World Cup-winning players who have sparked an unprecedented boom in the game with a pay rise.

The players, who received up to £83,000 (€118,000) a man for lifting the William Webb Ellis trophy, are currently paid under an agreement with Premier Rugby Limited, signed in 2001.

Francis Baron, chief executive of the Rugby Football Union whose profit was up 21% on the previous year with turnover increased 49% from £59.1m (€84.2m) to £78.1m (€111.3m) said that any rise would be a matter for PRL which is funded mainly by the RFU.

Any financial benefit for the players in the near future could come from a re-negotiation of the lucrative image rights which Baron described as “outdated”.

He said: “I’m sure when the dust has settled a bit next year we will be having dialogue with the players on future arrangements.”

The profits have enabled the RFU to wipe out the last £19m (€27m) of debt for the development of Twickenham, which has just been given the go ahead from Richmond Council for a new south stand which will increase capacity from 74,000 to 84,000.

There will certainly be no trouble filling it as it was revealed that all tickets for England’s celebration match against the New Zealand Barbarians on December 21 were snapped up within three hours of going on sale.

The amazing interest created by the World Cup success is currently seeing Twickenham selling out replica shirts and other memorabilia faster than they can be manufactured in the run up to Christmas.

The RFU plan to keep the momentum going for a game which has seen 10,000 extra youngsters start playing since the beginning of the World Cup campaign.

Plans were unveiled to recruit more young players, more coaches, make the game appealing to everyone by promoting non-contact rugby and continue the World Cup mania by taking the Webb Ellis cup on a 30-stop nation-wide tour over the coming weeks.

“People have always said that with soccer you could put four coats down and play and you can do that with the non-contact form of rugby,” said Terry Burwell, the RFU’s operations director.

“Rugby is cool at the moment and we have to keep that going,” he added.

But, despite its current popularity, the game has no plans to mount a challenge to soccer as the nation’s number one sport.

“Rugby will not overtake soccer, clearly not in our lifetime if ever,” said Baron.

He insisted: “Our aim is to become the number two team sport behind soccer. We meet regularly with other sports, including cricket, tennis and football, and we want to work with them not against them.”

Crowd capacity will inevitably limit the growth of rugby with the top Zurich Premiership clubs playing in stadiums holding a maximum 22,000 while some top-flight clubs are struggling to accommodate attendances of 10,000 – figures which do not compare with football’s second tier.

“We don’t have the grounds available to get anywhere near Nationwide Division One,” said Baron as he explained that the game’s rulers are determined to preserve the image of rugby and avoid the sort of crowd problems which have plagued football for too many years.

“Rugby is a different sport with a different ethos in the game. That’s very important to us and in no way do we want to lose it. It’s important commercially and differentiates us from other sports. We are rugby and we know what we can achieve.”

But with several sponsorship contracts due to expire during the next 12 months, rugby is clearly looking to cash in.

“The timing of renewals is important and we have some important contracts coming up for discussion during the next year,” added Baron.