Almost quarter of elite women players reject IRFU contract offer

The IRFU’s plans to provide a group of 43 centralised, paid contracts to elite women’s players next season has run into unsurprising teething problems, with 10 or so players having turned down the Union’s initial offers.

However, The Irish Times understands that around 75% of the 43 contracts have been taken up, which is probably what would have been anticipated at the start of this process. The 43 contracts include women’s XVs players for the first time, plus those already in operation for the women’s Sevens programme, with some players again combining both roles.

These dual roles will again cause debate, not least as England have separated contracts for the XVs and Sevens games, even if that has been to the initial benefit of the former and detriment of the latter.

The contracts are part of the overall redesign of the women’s game which is being overseen by David Nucifora and Gillian McDarby, in her newly-created role as the IRFU’s head of women’s performance and pathways.

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It is understood that seven or eight of the 43 contracts (which included a 148-page collective bargaining agreement) will be at €30,000 plus training fees, match fees and bonuses. The majority of the contracts are to start at €15,000, although again they will include training fees, match fees and bonuses.

As the 43 players are to be based in the IRFU’s High Performance Centre at Sports Campus Ireland in Abbotstown, the size of these contracts is of particular concern for those based outside Dublin or in England, given the cost of rent and of living generally in the capital. In all likelihood, the IRFU will have to find ways of providing accommodation for those outside Dublin if they are to take up these contracts.

In truth, many of those based in England are probably better served staying put, both financially and given the superior standard of club rugby there and in France.

These first steps into contracting women’s XVs players have uncanny echoes of when the men’s game first turned professional in 1995 and when many players remained in the English club scene for the first few years of professionalism until the provinces became more competitive and rivalled the set-ups in England and France.

The Heineken Cup and Celtic League were significant in upgrading standards across the four provinces then and, similarly, the IRFU are looking to emulate the Welsh and Scottish Unions in entering semi-professional teams into a new women’s Celtic Cup, which should come to pass either this season or next.

The plan would ultimately be to have all four provinces compete in that competition in years to come, but for the time being it is likely that the interprovincial championship will provide a stepping stone to that competition, with the Union entering either two amalgamated teams or one combined provinces team.

These initial contract offers should be placed in the context of both the men’s game currently and the women’s game elsewhere. Contracts of €30,000 are akin to what the RFU offered when the England women’s team was made fully professional.

Full-time players in both the Irish men’s and women’s Sevens game were, until recently upgraded, at €18,000 across the board, which given the Union’s refusal to allow the men to supplement their earnings with sponsorship, prompted some to leave the programme.

It’s also worth noting that men’s academy players in the four provinces are understood to receive contracts of €8,000 per season, while some of those on men’s professional contracts with the provinces start at €40,000 or €50,000.

The women’s game does not generate the crowds or sponsorship to make the game self-serving, but ultimately that is the Union’s ambition, albeit there were bound to be some teething problems along the way.