Star players like Manu Tuilagi will not be allowed to leave if Leicester Tigers are relegated from Gallagher Premiership
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Alex Lowe, Deputy Rugby Correspondent
March 26 2019, 12:00pm, The Times
Leicester Tigers will not allow any of their star players to leave the club in event of relegation from the Gallagher Premiership. The standard contracts at Welford Road contain a two-stage relegation release clause, which permit a player to leave if they do not accept a 20 per cent pay cut.
However, that process can only be triggered by the club and Leicester have no plans to enforce the pay cut on its players, including Manu Tuilagi, whose new two-year £1.1 million contract comes into force in the summer.
The Premiership parachute payment is worth about £1.7 million to the relegated club, which would not cover the wages of Leicester’s England contingent of Tuilagi, George Ford, Ben Youngs, Jonny May, Dan Cole and Ellis Genge for one season in the Greene King IPA Championship.
Leicester will, however, have more than £10 million from CVC in the bank by the end of the season, with the private equity firm’s investment in the league due to be finalised this month.
The Tigers were dragged deeper into the relegation scrap over the weekend and are now just five points ahead of Newcastle Falcons, who are bottom of the table, with five games remaining.
Leicester face league-leaders Exeter Chiefs in their next Premiership game, on April 6, followed by a trip to play Newcastle at Kingston Park the following Friday in one of the biggest games of the season.
It would be the biggest shock in English rugby if Leicester were to get relegated but also, in some ways, strengthen the Premiership’s argument for ring-fencing the league.
Leicester’s playing budget would be £7.5 million, which is the Premiership salary cap. Ealing Trailfinders, who have threatened legal action to maintain promotion and relegation, operate with a budget of about £1 million. Their best-paid player is believed to be on £75,000 a year.
There are factions inside Premiership Rugby who still hope to ring-fence the Premiership this summer, turning it into a 13-team league including London Irish, who are the 13th shareholder and top of the Championship.
The RFU would have to sign off an end to promotion and relegation. Nigel Melville, the interim chief executive, is open to a discussion because of the financial disparity between the two leagues.
The RFU council loom as a major stumbling block. The representatives of the amateur game insisted on promotion and relegation being introduced into the Tyrrells Premier 15s, the women’s league. That decision was widely interpreted as a warning shot to the Premiership.