“Be very careful”, the Unions’ warning to their players on Rugby 360
The new rebel league, the Rugby 360 seeks to take the sport to another level and its players would have exorbitant salaries. In any case, the rugby unions of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, England, Scotland, France and Italy they issued a joint declaration where They confirmed that anyone who participates will not be eligible for their selections. It should be remembered that the South Africans had already made the decision, which was extended to the other unions. All rugby on Disney+ Premium Plan.
Rugby 360, the competition promoted – together with businessmen – by former English captain Mike Tindall, would be divided into two sections between April and June, and August and September 2026, and matches would be played at the Tottenham stadium, at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, at the Morumbí in San Pablo and in New York, among other major cities in the world. All of this would be fully financed for that season and they will seek to make it profitable by 2027. This financing comes from various private companies in Saudi Arabia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
The joint statement from the unions of New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, England, Scotland, France and Italy on Rugby 360
“As a group of national rugby unions, we urge players and support staff considering joining the proposed R360 competition to take great care. We all welcome new investment and innovation in rugby and support ideas that can help the game evolve and reach new audiences; but any new competition must strengthen the sport as a whole, not fragment or weaken it.
Among our roles as national unions, we must take a broader view of the new proposals and assess their impact in a variety of areas, including whether they contribute to the global rugby ecosystem, for which we are all responsible, or whether they are a net negative effect on the game. R360 has not given us any indication of how it plans to manage player welfare; how players would fulfill their aspirations to represent their countries and how the competition would co-exist with the hard-negotiated international and domestic calendars in recent years for our men’s and women’s games.
The R360 model, as publicly described, appears rather designed to generate profits and return them to a very small elite, potentially undermining the investment that existing national unions and leagues make in community rugby, player development and participation pathways. International rugby and our major competitions remain the economic and cultural engine that underpins all levels of the sport, from grassroots participation to elite performance. Weakening that ecosystem could be hugely detrimental to the health of our sport.
These are all issues that would have been much better discussed collaboratively, but those behind the proposed competition have not engaged or met with all the unions to better explain and understand their business and operating model. Therefore, each of the national unions will inform male and female players that participation in R360 would make them ineligible for international selection.”
