Revealed: Top four per cent of Premiership players earn more than £400k

Four per cent of players in the Gallagher Premiership were paid £400,000 or more in the 2020-21 season according to the first ever disclosure of average salaries for top-flight players following the release of Premiership Rugby’s salary-cap report.

Just under 30 per cent were paid on average between £50,000 and £100,000.  Fly-halves were the best paid players at an average income of £175,679, followed in the top three by centres and locks. Hookers were paid the least with an average of £113,115. Tighthead props, once one of the highest-paid positions, are grouped together with loose heads in the sixth-highest paid position.

The publication of the figures comes in the wake of Lord Myners’ report, which stemmed from the salary cap breaches for which Saracens were investigated back in 2019. One of the report’s main recommendations was a call for greater transparency regarding how the cap operates.

The report for the 2020-21 Gallagher Premiership season, which includes data for Saracens despite the club at the time playing in the Championship, also shows that 24 players had marquee status or, as the report calls them ‘excluded players’. One club did not have any marquee players during the 2020-21 season.

Simon Massie-Taylor, Premiership Rugby’s chief executive, confirmed that the salary cap will return to £6.4 million for the 2024-25 season and added that the Premiership champions each year will now be subjected to an extensive salary cap audit, undertaken by Price Waterhouse Cooper’s Forensic Services Team, with 2020-21 champions Harlequins being the first side to go through that process.

“That is an effective tool to answer lingering questions,” Massie-Taylor said. “Things like that are important and build credibility with