Nucifora: 8 women's players have turned down contracts

IRFU performance director David Nucifora has confirmed that eight women's players have turned down professional contracts from the union.

The IRFU are in the process of negotiating contracts with their women's XV internationals, which is expected to bring the total of contracted players across the women's XV and Sevens programmes up to 43.

Reports this week suggested there had been a slow uptake of contracts among the Ireland XV's players, with the salary scale of €15,000-30,000 plus benefits being an obstacle for those who would need to base themselves in Dublin.

Nucifora moved to clarify those reports this morning, admitting that eight players have so far turned down deals.

"We have offered 37 contracts to date," he said in a media briefing at the Aviva Stadium.

"We have had an uptake of 29 of those. We have had eight players turn down contacts, four of those are UK-based players and four based here. The four UK-based players are contracted to their [respective clubs] for the amounts of money I mentioned earlier [between £3,000-£10,000 per annum]."

The Australian also said that in some cases he was not surprised to see players opt out of the professional deals, with some already bound to contracts outside of Ireland, while others weren't in a position to compromise their careers outside of the game.

"One, they have a contractual obligation, but also they also made a decision that they would stay and play their rugby there this year.

"The other four players are players that are not surprising to us; just the age bracket of players we have, we have produced a model that has come on in a very short period of time. Those other women have got jobs, they are committed to their careers which is understandable.

"We fully understand