Clubs should not set salary cap - Gloucester owner

Gloucester were the only Premiership club to keep losses below £1m in the last set of accounts released

Premiership Rugby's salary cap should be "set independently" rather than by the clubs, says Gloucester owner Martin St Quinton.

The salary cap is determined and agreed by all Premiership clubs and increased from £5m back to £6.4m for the 2024-25 campaign, after being cut by £1.4m in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The last set of accounts filed by all Premiership clubs in 2022-23 showed that the sides collectively lost £30.5m and have net debts of over £300m.

"At the moment it's the clubs who decide what the salary cap should be and the clubs have proved year after year completely incapable of setting a sensible salary," St Quinton told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"It should be set independently from the PRB [Professional Rugby Board] with some input from the DCMS [Department for Culture, Media and Sport], what is the right amount of money that we can afford to play our club players?"

Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish all went bust during the 2022-23 campaign, during which nine of the remaining 10 Premiership teams saw debts of £1m or more.

Gloucester - whose debt totalled just over £541,000 - were the closest to breaking even.

The salary cap is voted on by all Premiership clubs, but St Quinton says it should be no higher than the money centrally distributed to the clubs each season.

A new Professional Game Partnership was announced in September, in agreement with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Premiership Rugby, that sees the clubs receive £33m per season between them over the next eight years.

"The cap should not be no higher than the levels of central distributions that we get," St Quinton said.

"If our central distributions went up because our media rights went up and our sponsorships went up then the salary cap could go up.

"We are all living beyond our means which is why the annual losses of all 10 clubs is over £30m which is madness. The whole club game, the model is flawed."

'More clubs could go bust'

St Quinton has been majority owner of Gloucester since 2016, but has had a stake in the club since 2008.

He said the ambition at Kingsholm each season is to break even financially, which others should strive towards in order to become more attractive to investors.

"It's very hard for either domestic investors or overseas investors to get involved in club rugby if they're looking at an asset that's losing considerable amounts of money every year," St Quinton said.

"It's just not an investable model. I wish all the clubs would attempt to break even.

"I try and make the point as often as I can that until we get all the clubs or the majority of clubs sustainable the whole league is fundamentally flawed and that's why three clubs have gone bust and more clubs could go bust.

"The problem hasn't been solved yet."