New season begins amid concern over whether club and country can cooperate in managing the welfare of players
English rugby’s bold new era appears set to belatedly begin. Nearly 12 months since the Rugby Football Union chief executive, Bill Sweeney, bullishly said that English rugby was “on the cusp of something spectacular” the time has arrived to demonstrate why. The much vaunted Professional Game Partnership is set to be unveiled, the agreement that governs how club and country coexist and cooperate, but amid the triumphalism we can expect at Twickenham on Wednesday, there is trepidation too.
These eight-year agreements are not easy to formulate but that said, progress has been painstaking of late. There is a degree of cynicism from within the Premiership that it has taken until a few weeks before the season begins for clarity to emerge, and concerns that negotiations with players over their enhanced contracts have hit roadblocks along the way. “Slow, slow” was how Ellis Genge described the progress only a couple of weeks ago.
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Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/article/2024/sep/03/trepidation-as-well-as-triumphalism-as-english-rugby-breaks-fresh-ground
Author : Gerard Meagher
Publish date : 2024-09-03 18:12:41
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