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MLR's pay-up reaction to coronavirus stoppage at odds with salary-cutting English clubs
By Online Editors
Major League Rugby officials in America have decided to do a very honourable thing - to honour in full the contracts of all its players despite the cancellation of the 2020 season just five weeks into the campaign.
The teething American league, the home this season to a galaxy of high profile names such as Ma'a Nonu, Mathieu Bastareaud and recent World Cup winner Tendai Mtawarira, pulled the plug on the remainder of the campaign on March 19 rather than adopting a wait-and-see approach to the spread of the coronavirus.
However, unlike some other tournaments where around the world where players have had pay cuts enforced on them or given unpaid leave, a meeting of the MLR board of governors has resulted in them voting to pay each player their full contract for the 2020 season.
There were fears that the squads for the twelve teams in the tournaments would be left out of pocket following the cancellation.
Each club had employed on average 25 full-time players under a per club salary cap of $500,000 where the maximum individual salary of $45,000.
Meanwhile, upwards of 120 part-time players will continue to be paid their weekly rate through to June when the play-offs were supposed to begin.
The decision by the Americans to honour player contracts should reflect positively on the MLR given the issues in tournaments such as the Gallagher Premiership in England where it’s reported that the entire Leicester Tigers squad are strongly considering rejecting the 25 per cent salary cut sought by the club.
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Latest Comments
Steve Borthwick appointment was misguided based on two flawed premises.
1. An overblown sense of the quality of the premiership rugby. The gap between the Premiership and Test rugby is enormous
2. England needed an English coach who understood English Rugby and it's traditional strengths.
SB won the premiership and was an England forward and did a great job with the Japanese forwards but neither of those qualify you as a tier 1 test manager.
Maybe Felix Jones and Aled Walter's departures are down to the fact that SB is a details man, which work at club level but at test level you need the manager to manage and let the coaches get on and do what they are employed for.
SB criticism of players is straight out of Eddie Jones playbook but his loyalty to keeping out of form players borne out of his perceived sense of betrayal as a player.
In all it doesn't stack up as the qualities needed to be a modern Test coach /Manager
Go to commentsBut still Australians. Only Australia can help itself seems to be the key message.
Blaming Kiwis is deflecting from the actual problem.
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