English Premiership clubs will have an additional STG500,000 ($A938,000) to spend on players next season after agreeing an increase in the salary cap.
Premiership Rugby's board have voted to increase the salary cap from STG4.26 million to STG4.76 million but officials insisted the move had nothing to do with trying to prevent players leaving England for offers from wealthy French clubs in particular.
And with academy credit 'add-ons', clubs will be able to spend up to STG5 million without breaching the salary cap.
The first STG30,000 of any club academy graduate, up to a limit of eight players, can be added on to the STG4.76 million 'limit'.
Meanwhile, Premiership clubs will still have the option of signing an "excluded player", allowing them to spend an unlimited amount on one star name whose pay falls outside the salary cap structure.
Recently, Leicester and England fly-half Toby Flood announced he would be playing in France next season, following a lucrative path already trodden by England great Jonny Wilkinson and several other players.
Japanese clubs have also been keen to splash the cash on marquee foreign players in a bid to raise the standard of their game ahead of the country's staging of the 2019 World Cup.
But the Premiership's director of rugby, Phil Winstanley, insisted the salary cap rise was not a defensive measure but a response to rising broadcast and sponsorship income from satellite channel BT and main backer Aviva, an insurance company.
"A lot of people will reach their own conclusions that we're trying to combat the French or Japanese market," Winstanley said. "And that's very much not the case.
"We have commercial success through our programmes with BT, Aviva and the likes, and as the revenues increase we think it's right to allow clubs to spend some of that through the salary cap."
However, he added: "There has to be pressure on club spends because we want the clubs to be viable businesses and the tournament to continue to be competitive."
Share
