Rugby and cricket to furlough players
Clubs and counties will claim Government bailout Move could save millions during coronavirus crisis
Premiership rugby clubs are to receive a multi-million-pound bailout from the Government after opting to put their players on sabbatical, The Sunday Tele
graph can reveal. County cricket clubs are discussing following suit after being told it would allow them to access funds made available under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme announced just over a week ago.
Some lower-league football clubs have already placed their players on furlough – under which the Government will pay 80 per cent of their wages up to a maximum of £2,500 a month – with others expected to follow after the Treasury confirmed salaried athletes were eligible.
Newcastle Falcons, who were top of rugby’s Championship when the season beneath the Premiership was abandoned last week, have put all their players and staff on furlough at the same time as planning pay cuts.
Premiership clubs have already asked players to take a 25 per cent pay cut, while Wasps have put the majority of their non-playing staff on furlough.
But finances at the 12 top-flight teams are so precarious that they are also looking to reduce their biggest expense further by applying for the Government scheme. That could save them millions collectively during the crisis.
One source told the Telegraph: “Clubs will be furloughing players. It will be en masse. Anybody who’s anybody is trying to work out how to do it. If this crisis lasts six months, it’s probably going to cost a club £3million to £4million, maybe more. Taking 25 per cent off the playing staff is not going to come close to solving the problem.”
Giving an example of a player on £200,000 a year whose salary had been cut to £150,000, he said furloughing him would allow a club to claim back 20 per cent of his remaining £12,500 monthly wage, the Government maximum of £2,500. He added: “If you’ve got 100 staff and you can get £250,000 a month, that’s really helpful.” A Premiership Rugby spokesman yesterday said decisions to furlough players were for individual clubs.
The England and Wales Cricket Board, meanwhile, told the Telegraph that it had written to counties on Friday with advice on furloughing players and staff. That was after the chief executive of Yorkshire, Mark Arthur, revealed that the ECB and counties were discussing furloughing. Yorkshire and Glamorgan have already done so, with a large number of off-field staff.
Using taxpayers’ money to help pay professional footballers, rugby players and cricketers could prove controversial given how much some earn – even some lower-league footballers are on thousands of pounds per week.
Premiership rugby players are paid up to £1million annually, with England captain Owen Farrell reportedly on £750,000 a year at Saracens.
Top England cricketers such as Ben Stokes are paid around £1million a year by the ECB, which has no immediate plans to ask the Government to top up salaries.
Until the end of last week, there had been uncertainty whether footballers, rugby players and cricketers could be furloughed under a scheme designed to protect employees who would otherwise have been laid off. One reason was players are not in immediate danger of losing their jobs and have even been training at home in anticipation of sport resuming. Another reason was that sportspeople are usually on fixedterm rather than permanent contracts and cannot be laid off. But the Treasury confirmed on Friday that neither of these factors would be a bar.
It was unclear last night whether players could carry out promotional work for their employer if placed on furlough. The same rugby source said some Premiership teams were considering using only those players with separate image-rights contracts for such purposes.