Rugby pay gap blown wide apart by Jones
STRUGGLING England rugby union head coach Eddie Jones is the man most responsible for the gender pay disparity in bonuses paid to RFU staff.
The 75.1 per cent difference between the average paid to men and women is considerably more than the gap at the Football Association (16.4 per cent) or England Cricket Board (60.2 per cent).
Jones is reckoned to be the highest paid coach in world rugby, earning around £750,000 annually including bonuses, and the gender pay survey took in the unbeaten run at the start of his England tenure — a Six Nations Grand Slam followed three victories in Australia and an autumn series sweep.
The report stated: ‘This run of success meant a number of performance bonuses were paid to men in senior coaching roles, contributing significantly to the bonus pay gender gaps.’
At least the difference in bonus payments for RFU staff will shrink for the next survey because of England’s woeful fifth place in the Six Nations.
The RFU, ECB and FA all say their bonus gaps are exaggerated by the incentivised rewards for success in male team sports. WITH England players already playing too many games for club and country, no wonder World Rugby gave short shrift to a proposal from global PR agency Teneo for a World Club Championship. Certainly Teneo sports adviser Brian O’Driscoll, who made a world-record number of appearances for Ireland (133) and toured four times with the British and Irish Lions, should know better.
Meanwhile, England players were contracted by their over-the-top set of commercial deals to make 17 personal appearances around Twickenham after Saturday’s defeat by Ireland. The most irritating must have been for Owen Farrell, who was assigned the Green Room, official hospitality operators, where Ronan Keating was singing and an Irish Grand Slam party was in full swing.
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chairman Rod Bransgrove has written a new song for his popular band Strapped For Cash that surely can only be aimed at his arch enemy in cricket, haughty former ECB chairman Giles Clarke. The powerful lyrics sung from the heart include the lines: ‘Anything you do has an arrogant air, you look down your nose, you’re a pompous bully, you’re vain and arrogant, talking posh, I’ve never met anyone quite like you.’ Yet Bransgrove claims: ‘There are references to all sorts of people, but no one specific.’ Some of us who know Clarke and his history with Bransgrove will need more convincing.