IRUPA chief calls for sweeteners to aid player movement
FINANCIAL incentives will be key if proposals to strategically switch players around the provinces are to be a success, according to the Irish Rugby Union Players Association (IRUPA).
When the IRFU’s new high performance director David Nucifora arrived last year, he insisted he and the union would look into a movement strategy to prevent players being ‘warehoused in one particular spot’.
And, while IRUPA are content to support such an initiative, chief executive Omar Hassanein agrees that financial incentives need to be offered in order to facilitate more movement of their members away from their home provinces.
‘I know the governing body might say that’s money that we shouldn’t have to spend in an internal market but my answer to that is that if you’re looking to develop certain provinces, or looking to move people to situations where they’re playing in front of lesser crowds or in lower level tournaments, then you need to incentivise them to do that,’ Hassanein told the Irish Mail On
Sunday,
‘You can’t expect people to move for the same amount of money to a situation which offers them – in their eyes – a lesser career opportunity.
‘Every player should be given the right to progress his career as he wishes so you can’t second players wherever you wish to play them,’ adds the 38-year-old Australian.
‘What you need to do is have a strategy in place that clearly shows the benefits, perhaps more so than we’ve had in the past, of why a player should move to Connacht or shift between Munster and Leinster and why they should be breaking down that long-held cultural barrier.’
As IRUPA approaches its 15th birthday, the players’ voice has greater influence now that Hassanein sits on the newly formed National Professional Games Board (NPGB), which met for the first time last month.
Alongside IRFU chief executive Phillip Browne, the provincial CEOs and high performance director Nucifora, there is a place for IRUPA which should ensure the players are not excluded from key conversations.
The players’ body has long fought to be treated as an equal partner in Irish rugby and in the new contract negotiations IRUPA are seeking more clarity and less scope for misinterpretation to occur.
In the past, they have been hamstrung from a negotiating standpoint because they have not had access to all of the necessary details.
‘We’ve tried to break down areas where information has been too tightly withheld and said “we need to know how the whole financial flow works” because we’re an integral stakeholder,’ insists Hassanein.
‘I think that’s very fair and reasonable. Ultimately, we’re the guys who provide the entertainment. In order for us to operate in as mature a fashion as other countries when it comes to an employer-employee relationship, we need to command the respect that we should be brought into every discussion in its entirety.’
However, the maturing of the relationship and Hassanein’s seat on the NPGB does not mean turbulence is completely unavoidable.
Although Irish rugby’s ecosystem generally works in favour of the national team, there are still knots to be unravelled in an environment that was originally shaped by amateurs and influenced by provincial tribalism.
Along with the inclusion of IRUPA as a key stakeholder, the repatriation of Ireland out-half Johnny Sexton from Racing Metro is also seen as a positive step for the game, but lessons have to be learned by everyone.
‘The IRFU recognise that perhaps they would have benefited from speaking to Johnny a little earlier on,’ explains Hassanein.
‘The thing the IRFU will have learned from it is that we shouldn’t be cavalier about letting our high-end players move abroad or be happy to let them go because you’ve seen the impact it’s had on Leinster.’