Premiership braced for long lay off

RUGBY UNION

SALE Sharks’

Gallagher Premiership rivals Gloucester

Rugby are gearing up for the league to remain shut down for as long as six months.

The RFU yesterday announced that all leagues below the top flight won’t resume this season.

The Premiership has been halted for five weeks due to the spread of coronavirus, and there are fears the season will be scrapped altogether.

Steve Diamond’s Sale sit second in the table, just behind Exeter.

Gloucester chief executive Lance Bradley has explained the Kingsholm club’s moves to cut player wages by 25 per cent are based on expectations the league may not resume until September.

The 2020/21 Premiership campaign would ordinarily start in September, and the congested calendar leaves precious little wiggle room - especially with the British and

Irish Lions tour to South Africa slated to start in July 2021.

Every Premiership club is expected to lobby their players to take a similar 25 per cent pay cut while the league is out of action, to help England’s top-flight fend off an extended run without income.

“The key thing is when we can get back to playing,” Bradley said.

●● Steve Diamond

“The Premiership has been postponed for four rounds, five weeks. And all of the suggestions that we’ve heard are that we are going to be pretty much shut down for 12 weeks with the impact of the virus. You can’t restart rugby before it’s safe to gather in groups again, whatever else might be important everyone’s health is the most important.

“So we think the most likely scenario is that we could start playing rugby again September.

“If that were to be the case then this club will have no income for six months, literally no income. And our wage bill is around £1m a month.

“So it doesn’t take very long to explain that with £6m going out and nothing coming in on a business where last year we lost £2m, it doesn’t add up.

“If you have no income, even if you’ve got a reasonable amount of cash which we have, it disappears very quickly.”