Heads of agreement documents, thought to have been signed by some players already, are believed to feature a promise to at least double salaries for appearing in the new league, if and when the competition gets off the ground.
While World Rugby would not comment publicly on the reports, Telegraph Sport understands the governing body has been aware of the developments for some time. Its focus for now is on fixing the rising costs in the sport, including wage inflation, as outlined by new chair Brett Robinson following his election on Thursday.
The news of a breakaway league broke hours after Robinson addressed the media, having stressed before voting took place in Dublin “that the financial sustainability of our member unions is at crisis point”.
Robinson later added: “We’ve done some great work in the past few months bringing our top unions together. There are revenue and cost levers we can play with. We did a workshop four weeks ago, and last night the CEOs and chairs of the major unions came together as a follow-on from that. We’re into some detail about those things now.”
Money matters
The new World Rugby chair also previously stressed the need to address player salaries across the game while speaking on The Good, the Bad and the Rugby podcast.
“There is a really massive issue and that’s dealing with the creaking of our unions,” said Robinson. “It’s the cost of our players that is really putting pressure on our cost bases. I think we’ve got to get real serious about that.”
World Rugby is currently investing record sums into each level of the game, with £300 million going direct to unions and regions following last year’s Rugby World Cup in France, while projections for the 2027 men’s tournament in Australia and 2031 event in the United States say they are currently forecast to generate £550 million and £700 million respectively.
A source added that interest from host cities and commercial interests for the 2031 Rugby World Cup has been “exceptional”.
Formula One-style roadshow
It remains unclear where the franchises will be based and what they will be called, but the Formula One-style roadshow element would extend to the fixture schedule, with matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday on any given leg.
The Rugby Players Association, the body representing elite players in England, expressed caution over the significant challenges that come with creating a franchise model in rugby union.
“The idea of an elite global competition has floated around for some time. The success of some franchise format leagues show what can be possible and these can be exciting, but there are significant challenges to make the idea viable for rugby union,” Christian Day, the RPA general secretary and former chairman, told Telegraph Sport.
“The costs associated with employing around 350 top global players are considerable. It would also require significant further investment in order to build the necessary support structures around those players and to facilitate travel on a global scale. These welfare and well-being provisions cannot be overlooked. The contractual challenge will also be significant. Most players in high demand will subsequently be tied into stable contracts.”
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