Will Evans, Ollie Lawrence and Ollie Sleightholme are among the top players out of contract next year
Fireworks and confetti, perhaps there are no more left. He will travel to Twickenham to mark the end of the Gallagher Premiership season with a triumph for Northampton, but rugby's transfer market is restless as the salary cap is set to rise from £5m to £6.4m.
Notable players out of contract in the summer of 2025 include Tommy Freeman, Ollie Lawrence, Tom Pearson, Ollie Sleightholme, Rory Hutchinson and Will Evans. This means that negotiations between these players, their agents and other clubs can officially begin from 1 July.
Some of these players have already been invited to visit other clubs to meet directors of rugby, with one Premier club The league has already asked just 10 players to remain under contract beyond the 2024–25 season.
Speaking to agents and club recruiters (on condition of anonymity), Telegraph Sport has learned that over the past 12 months players have been left with no choice but to sign reduced contracts or remain without a club, with some considering their future in future. Sport.
Meanwhile, strict rules regarding foreign players in both France and Japan mean opportunities abroad may be limited.
Starting pistol
There are 124 registered agents in England Rugby and England. On the first day of July, most of these agents will send lists of out-of-contract players to every Premier League club. “It eliminates the scam,” as one agent put it.
Nick Kennedy, the former England international who heads Saracens' recruitment, is considered a master at determining when players are out of contract, not just in England but around the world. “Some other clubs seem completely clueless,” says one agent. «It'll surprise you — it's a multi-million pound business, you'd think they'd have all the details covered.»
Although clubs can't officially speak to players until July 1, they can speak to their agents ahead of time . Telegraph Sport understands that some clubs are wining and treating a host of agents to facilitate potential negotiations down the line.
It's worth noting here that most of the business carried out by clubs each season is based on retention, which takes up «70-80 per cent of your business» and teams are aiming to complete it by November, according to a club source. The best intentions are to allow those who are short on time to find a new home.
Tommy Freeman is another leading Premier player league, which can officially begin negotiations for next year's transfer from next month. Photo: Getty Images/David Rogers Find the right candidate
Knowing who's available is one thing: figuring out whether they're a good fit is another. The days of signing players based on briefing notes and one meeting are largely over, although one agent suggests some clubs further down the table could still do so.
Also, just because a player is out of contract doesn't mean they're likely to leave. «You know you're not going to take the focus away from another English club, so you're effectively looking at second and third options,» as one club source put it.
Another stresses the importance of leaving only two or three votes on the transfer committee, after involving more members of the coaching staff when, of course, the scrum coach will favor a quality tight end, while attack coaches want distributors and finishers, and so on.
< p>According to research from one top club, once a player is identified, the head coach then reviews three to five full games of match tape, and the recruiting executive reviews even more before coming to a conclusion. Players will be encouraged to visit clubs, tour stadiums and even attend matches, but recruitment executives will also hit the road to meet players and represent their club, sometimes traveling internationally.Having already identified talent and ability, clubs now look to see if the player is a good fit from a personality standpoint. Looking at a player's social media is an obvious place to start: one club is considering conducting psychometric testing to measure a player's personality, although they admit to the Telegraph that this is proving difficult to arrange as part of negotiations.
One source says they are looking to see how they will fit into a group that spends a huge amount of time together. You also have to consider the comfort and integration of the athlete's family. One club we spoke to invited their player welfare manager to a two-hour meeting. As they tell us: «The player had never been to the UK, didn't know the country, had a wife and young children, so wanted some reassurance about how we look after the players.»
More work is now taken away on setting up home and ensuring that newcomers are as informed as possible about where they will be living so that players can hit the ground running rather than spending months settling into a new area.
< p>You must make your club as attractive as possible. A club source told The Telegraph: “We are not in a market where a club will offer triple what another club offered, the money will always be within the same parameters. There has to be a connection to something that resonates with them.»
Smokescreens and Leverage
When it comes to money and how much to offer, there are times when several clubs may be interested in one player. The question is whether to believe it or not, given that agents may assume there is more interest in a player than there really is.
There is an understanding in the market that agents work for players and recruiters work for clubs — sometimes they are at odds. Even if a player wants to stay at his club, a good agent will try to get his client more money, even if one of the club's contacts suggests that to a certain extent «part of it is noise.»
One agent, while acknowledging that the tactic is both a «calculated risk» and a «big gamble,» explains: «You can hint at another club or another option, but there's always a 10 to 15 percent chance that your club will say, 'Okay.' , we're not ready to do that» or «we're not going to do that, so just accept the other offer.» And if there really is no other offer, it's a big gamble for your players.»
Tom Pearson (right) celebrating Northampton's Premier League final win has been the center of attention following the collapse of London Irish last year. Photo: Getty Images/David Rogers
According to one of them, such vastly different financial offers to players are also unlikely. club source. Through the grapevine, the agents, the chatter, there are “very few secrets” in rugby. If several clubs are chasing a player, they say, it will be known.
However, money talks. One club said they tried to sign England flanker Tom Pearson following the collapse of London Irish last year, but soon realized their hopes were slim given Northampton Saints had a bigger budget following the departure of Lucan Salakai-Loto. A week after the opening negotiations, they realized that they had no chance.
Contract dispute
Two factors have had a seismic impact on player salaries in recent years, starting with the pandemic. The lack of matchday revenue has squeezed the entire Premier League, leading to a salary cap cut to £5m in an attempt to cut costs and limit losses, leading to what one agent called a “wage depression”.
According to Premiership Rugby’s latest salary cap report for 2022-23, the average salary was £182,866, down almost £5,000 on the previous season.
However, the demise of Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish caused much more damage. Suddenly, about 150 players began looking for work mid-season, long after teams had filled out their rosters for the 2022-23 campaign. These collapses gave the remaining clubs all the bargaining power when it came to offering contracts.
“Last year the player received 80 thousand pounds, and the club said that this year it will be 40 thousand,” says one of the agents. “And the player asked if I could get some flights there or what if I played 10 more games and they said, 'It's £40,000, take it or leave it — there are 10 more players ready to bite.' our hands are off for this contract.» Many players are seeing their offers cut from £150,000 to £70,000 later in their careers.»
After Wasps collapse Alfie Barberi was left without a club. Photo: Getty Images/Stu Forster
In a buyer's market, clubs may be able to forgo some costs, and some agents face the unenviable task of selling preferential offers to their players. However, as one agent put it, «You either have a job or you don't.»
There is a domino effect with players coming from Worcester, Wasps or Ireland and pushing out other players. Another club source notes that the Jersey Reds' failure in the Championship means that even if players decide to leave the division, they will have fewer well-paid options, forcing players to reconsider their future in the sport.
They tell us: “If you've got a £50k player who's been spat out, he used to have the potential to go and win something in the Championship in recent years. They're probably turning 28-29 now and wondering what the next step is, other than rugby, which makes me the same amount of money but gives me the opportunity to live for the next 30 years rather than play rugby for a couple more years »
Two-year contracts remain the most popular contract, giving players the opportunity to increase their salary rather than being stuck on the same amount for a longer period of time.
One agent tells us what an experienced international tells him that he prefers a 12-month contract. The logic is that if he becomes a top player next year, he can demand more money.
The other element is that within the new Professional Gaming Partnership (PGP) agreement there is a proposal to limit senior Premier League squads with 35 places, as well as creating a transition group of a dozen academy players.
One club source says that as clubs are required to field an average of 15 English qualified players (EQPs) in each matchday squad during the season, between 23 and 25 players in the squad must be English. This means we don't have to «scan the global market for the bulk of our people» as English talent is now in high demand.
That could spell bad news for players without EQP status, and good news for those with English pedigree. «If you get into the Scotland squad, will you be considered less valuable? Well, yes, in a way,» adds one agent.
Foreign options
While players have historically been jealous of the amount of money offered in France, actually getting a contract given the strict requirements of the JIFF (joueurs issus des filières de formation, roughly translated as «academy-trained players») for each team is very difficult. from the simple.
Each team in the top 14 has 12 places outside the JIFF (13 for promoted clubs), meaning 170 league places are left for «the whole world to fight for», as one agent put it, adding that French clubs are reluctant to sign old teams. UK players. French clubs may have bigger budgets, but the wage cap in the top 14 is set at €11.3m (£9.6m). «The wage cap doesn't allow us to do everything we want,» says a French club spokesman.
A move to the second division, ProD2, may not bring huge money (with salaries ranging from £5,000 to £8,000 a month) but comes with a house and «lots of holidays», says one agent, which may appeal to some Premier League players. It's a boom time for French rugby, with TV rights deals recently up 13 per cent and another agent telling us he was talking to third-tier club Nationale who claimed to be receiving 30 CVs a week for players. .
French and English clubs are indeed very different from each other in terms of resources and willingness to pay for transfers. They are more or less non-existent in England, with the last big move between Premier League clubs being Cam Redpath's move from Sale Sharks to Bath just before the pandemic, in 2020, for over £100,000. French clubs may be capped, but transfer fees are separate transactions, so Toulouse sign Scot Blair Kinghorn from Edinburgh after the Rugby World Cup for a six-figure fee.
«It means nothing to them,» says one agent in France, before mentioning Stade Francais' purchase of two players, Mathieu Yrigoyen and Lucas Peyresblanc, who came through Biarritz's academy and had relegation clauses. Stade paid €500,000 (£472,000) each. “It's the wild west. There are more and more contract buyouts,” adds the agent.
Blair Kinghorn, who joined Toulouse from Edinburgh for a six-figure sum , celebrates victory in the Champions Cup final. Photo: Getty Images/Harry Murphy
In Japan, the top league may be an increasingly popular choice for UK players, but team places are becoming increasingly rare there now, partly because Japanese recruitment won't start until the end of the UK season in April and May.
Agent explains to us how difficult it is to advise a player to wait and see if options become available in Japan, knowing that if they miss out, squads will also be filled at Premier League clubs. Another agent tells us it's unheard of for top players to wait that long. As they explain: “You'd rather go to a £100,000 concert in England than wait for Japan.”
Japanese clubs are allowed to have 10 foreign players, three of whom can play internationally. With 26 teams competing in the top three divisions, this means there are only 78 spots available for cap players, with many of them signing contracts of up to two or three years, meaning those spots rarely become available.< /p>
Get one of these seats. However, the deals with company-funded clubs and the rewards are significant. Richie Mo'unga, the All Blacks' number 10, reportedly earns a salary of just over £1 million per season.
Reloading and the future
Back to the Premier League: this is a crucial season for all clubs, given that some players will soon be paid much closer to their real value, with the salary cap now set to rise by £1.4 million.
The reason for this, one club source tells us, is that «a lot of clubs have put a lot of contracts into that cap.» They tell us this was always part of the plan. According to them, each club has significant expenses and not much income, but the situation is expected to level out after the upcoming season.
In terms of negotiations, sources tell us that we are approaching one of the busiest periods yet . for years. One club source says there will be some interesting players coming into the league over the next 12 months.
Despite this, the reality is that Covid has led to a general belt-tightening across the sport. Companies looking to invest in boot and merchandise sponsorship deals are now focusing on a select few top-flight players – think Marcus Smith, Maro Itoje and Ellis Genge – rather than the entire league.
One agent adds: “As always, the top guys are doing well; higher wages and bigger deals. Even though he’s a good Premier League player, but he’s not restricted, his life is noticeably worse than it was seven years ago. He can’t get a free pair of boots from anyone, he’s under wage pressure. It’s tough at the moment.”
And these are the players who were lucky enough to retain contracts at all after three teams collapsed last season. Although, as Jonny May has shown this week by signing for French second division side Soyo Angoulême, without a set transfer window, rugby recruitment is a constant and relentless beast, as one club source noted. «The market never closes. It's always happening.»
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