The Rugby Football Union and Premiership Rugby are understood to have reached agreement on a radical overhaul of the control and management of leading England players as part of a wider ?128 million deal.
The new ?professional game partnership?, which is expected to be publicly unveiled in December, will see the current 45-man elite player squad (EPS) replaced by a new arrangement that will give England head coach Steve Borthwick much greater control of an inner core group of 20 players from the start of next season.
The stand-out feature of the new deal will enable Borthwick to have much greater oversight and input into both the conditioning, skills development and player load of an elite hand-picked group who will be identified as the foundation stones for the 2027 World Cup squad, in a new two-tier system that retains a larger EPS group.
The establishing of what is close to a ?hybrid contract? for England?s leading players would give Borthwick and the RFU more control and input into the playing and training load of his main players in return for greater compensation. It should also intensify competition among players within the England squad to secure a ?core? place.
?This is about creating a winning England and winning clubs,? said one senior source. ?It is a win-win for clubs and country.?
At present all clubs are paid ?40,000 for every player provided to England?s Elite Player Squad, regardless if they are an established starter or unused player.
?England coach will be held to a much greater account?
The deal, which is expected to see the RFU pay the 10 Premiership clubs around ?32million per year for the next four years, will also see Borthwick face greater accountability than his predecessor Eddie Jones, who was accused of paying ?lip service? to post-tournament reviews.
The extra scrutiny and transparency is to come in the form of a ?beefed up? professional game board, which includes representatives from the RFU, Premiership and Championship clubs and the players? union.
It is thought that it may include the appointment of an independent chair, and sources claim the new PGB will no longer be regarded as a talking shop.
?For the first time the England coach will have to be more transparent about his decisions and be held to a much greater account,? said one senior source close to the PGB. ?In future it will be able to bare its teeth. Eddie seemed to treat the PGB with disdain, those days are over.?
The deal will also see the scrapping of the widely discredited anonymous review panel, made up of RFU board and executive members, as well as former players and coaches, that was originally set up to hold Jones to account.
Borthwick is unlikely to resist greater accountability. Sources say it was his presentation to the PBG following England?s disastrous Six Nations campaign that provided an ?alarming wake-up call? to the failings of the current system.
Encouragingly, there appears to be much greater enthusiasm within the Premiership clubs to collaborate with the England project, after relations had completely broken-down during Jones?s seven-year tenure.
The new arrangement, which will kick in next year, should see England move much closer to much-vaunted Ireland?s high-performance programme which has enabled Andy Farrell?s side to move to No 1 in the world rankings despite a fraction of the player numbers and financial resources.
England, despite the ?200 million spent on the last eight-year professional game agreement, only had access to 25 players during a normal Test week, not enough for 15 v 15 training sessions ? a situation that does not affect Borthwick?s Ireland counterpart Andy Farrell. Clubs generously allowed the national team to retain 29 players during last season?s Six Nations but that was an exception to the rule.
A symptom of the failing of the current regime came when Borthwick warned at the end of the Six Nations campaign in March that his players were not fit enough to compete at the World Cup, but claimed he did not have the power to address the problem before the squad reassembled for the pre-tournament camp.
?Once the players leave on Sunday and return to their clubs, we have no control over them. We will have conversations with the players and with their clubs so we can give what we would like, but ultimately we don?t have any control over that,? said Borthwick.
?What we all want is a competitive, vibrant Premiership that produces the best possible players in a condition ready for Test rugby to be able to compete at the top of Test rugby. Because that is where we want to be. We don?t want multiple Six Nations with only a couple of wins. We want to be at the top of the championship.?
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