Are salary cuts in the offing for players?

Bristol Shoguns
By Duncan Wood
January 21 2003

It's becoming more and more likely that players and coaching staff at all clubs will face reduced salaries based on recent events. Gloucester have announced that things will have to change at Kingsholm this close season.

There was an article in the Guardian this morning which revealed that Gloucester believe that Ludovic Mercier has cost them £250,000.

Harsh words maybe, but Gloucester's Managing Director, Ken Nottage, reckons that Ludo's decision to take a quick tap rather than kick an easy penalty was responsible for them crashing out of the Heineken Cup and will cost them £250,000. Ouch!

Nottage went on to confirm that money is tight at Gloucester and that changes will be made at the end of the season in a scenario that is earily similar to that here at Bristol.

Consider Nottage's comments:

"We have a squad of 32 players with around one-third of them coming out of contract at the end of the season. There is no way they will all be kept on and some who are offered new contracts will be done so on reduced terms.

"Players tend to ask for a 20-40% rise when they negotiate a new deal, but those days are gone and they have to realise that. We will be submitting the budget to the coaching staff for next season within a few weeks and it is up to them who they keep on, but there will be one or two big-name casualities unless the players are realistic. It is a difficult balancing act because we have a strong squad and we have to be driven by success, but equally we cannot spend money we have not got."

Bristol also have a number of players out of contract at the end of the season and I think that the grim reality is starting to dawn on players and officials alike that professional rugby cannot continue to be run in the way that it has been.

It has been a subject of debate on the messageboards recently and it is a harsh reality that player and coaching staff salaries make up a huge proportion of the average Zurich Premiership's outlay. Revenues are clearly not equalling the amount being spent and something has to give.

Gloucester are sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership and were a good bet for the Heineken Cup. They fill Kingsholm most weeks and yet there are atill going to have to make cuts at the end of the season. I believe that Bristol will have to do so as well.

In the same way that football players are no longer able to command massive transfer fees in the wake of the ITV Digital crisis, professional rugby players are probably going to have to be prepared to compromise when it comes to signing their next deal.

The money isn't there. It probably never was but clubs have been running at a loss which is no longer a tenable position. Nottage is very frank in his assessment. The Gloucester squad will not be kept together in its current form based on its current salary bill.

And if players think that a reduced contract offer can be bettered elsewhere, they may well be mistaken.

I genuinely think that most players are fairly realistic. They know that they don't earn Premiership football salaries and that they won't be able to live for the rest of their lives on their earning from rugby.

Paul Johnstone and Andrew Sheridan have embarked on courses to enable them to have a trade when they finish playing. Garath Archer has started his own business venture.

Difficult times ahead perhaps and the agents are really going to have to earn their commisions.