RUGBY’S IN A SARRY MESS
Trophies & glory galore but pay row sees Saracens branded cheats amid calls for suspensions
IT was meant to be the day of Owen Farrell’s dreams – instead it turned into a nightmare.
Yesterday had been booked for a victory parade in London, at which the England captain would show off the World Cup.
But then South Africa won Saturday’s final, the open-top bus tour was cancelled and then in its place Premiership Rugby dropped a bombshell.
Farrell and eight of his Saracens club-mates were starting their first day at home after a physically and emotionally draining two months in Japan, when the first shock waves were felt.
English club chiefs handed the Premiership champions a 35point deduction and fined them £5.36million for breaching salary cap regulations in the past three seasons.
The punishment follows a probe into business partnerships between chairman Nigel Wray and some of the players. Wray owns businesses with Farrell, Billy and Mako Vunipola and Richard Wigglesworth – England stars who have helped Sarries win seven domestic and European titles in five years.
As recently as June the Londoners were being hailed as the greatest club side of all time. Now some will think differently.
“Unlucky,” tweeted former Bath star James Wilson.
“Overpaying your players and then having to pay that bill... was it worth it all? To be best in Europe over the last few seasons? To now be officially labelled cheats?”
Such words will wound Wray, who has done more than anyone to make English club rugby viable in the 25 years since the game officially turned professional.
His investment, which tops £40m, has gone into community projects which include Saracens High School – the first professional sports club to open a mainstream school.
“I have put my heart and soul into the game I love, this is absolutely devastating,” he said. “It feels like the rug is being pulled out from under our feet.”
It is not only Saracens who have benefitted on the pitch, the England squad is built on its Sarries spine – with eight in the 23-man World Cup final squad.
In a candid interview in May, Wray told me he could understand people thinking his investment arrangements with some of his highest-profile players was a way round the wage cap.
“But there is a huge difference between investment – where the player can lose money, we can lose money – and salary,” he said.
“To me, that’s a most important point.” That, as it has turned out, is a matter of opinion. “The career of a rugby player might end tomorrow,” he said.
“We have to help them build a better tomorrow. Hopefully that will be in their 30s, but at some stage players will fall off a cliff.
“Their salary will go down by 90 per cent. They will lose the ‘family’ they have been with for 15 years. We’ve got to work at giving them a better future.”
Time will tell on that too, with Tony Rowe, chairman of an Exeter club beaten in the past two finals by Saracens, calling for them to be suspended from the league until they can prove their squad is within the salary cap.
Saracens will appeal, which means all sanctions are lifted until that process is completed in the New Year. They insist they won’t be forced to sell players, nor are they barred from signing new ones.
But it’s hard to see how change is avoidable given their squad is stronger than that found to have breached the cap.
English rugby was hoping to build on the World Cup.
Instead, it is battling to preserve the integrity of its premier competition.