Advertisement League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories Leinster boast the strongest squad in Ireland. top earners Latest tweak to central contract funding might not be enough to address imbalance From August 2026 the four provinces will be responsible for 40% of the cost of national player contracts. 6.31am, 16 Apr 2025 Share options THERE MIGHT BE no perfect solution as to how best finance and support the professional rugby game in Ireland, but it’s a problem the IRFU have been thinking long and hard about. The less glamorous of the two announcements made by the union yesterday is that they are undertaking an ‘organisational efficiency review’. You don’t have to look too far to see why this is a good idea. Other unions across the Irish Sea have been reporting major financial losses and watched leading clubs fall into administration. A handful of English clubs snubbed the Champions Cup this season by fielding weakened teams in the knockout rounds – the apathy in those parts isn’t helped by the fact the competition is not available on terrestrial TV, with the Premiership and Champions Cup split across TNT Sports and Premier Sports respectively. The outlook is better in Ireland with strong attendances across the board and a successful men’s senior team at the focal point. The IRFU did post a deficit last year (€18.4m), but the union has no debt, cash and cash investments of €69m and net assets of €87m. The appetite for rugby here is huge. Look at the list of most-watched TV events at the end of each year. In 2024 six of the top 10 were Ireland rugby internationals. Look at the 30,000 who booked Rome for this year’s Six Nations clash, dreaming of a Grand Slam. Look at the Irish crowds that took over French stadiums at the 2023 World Cup. Look at the numbers Leinster have been able to attract to the Aviva Stadium and Croke Park over the last 12 months, Munster selling-out Thomond Park and Páirc Uí Chaoimh or Connacht doing the same in an ambitious move to Mayo’s MacHale Park while they wait for the redeveloped Dexcom Stadium. Yet some things can’t be taken for granted. Take the GAA, who used to pack out Croke Park for Leinster Championship matches. After an era of Dublin dominance a Leinster final doesn’t even sell out anymore. This writer is among those who used to never miss a Dublin game but lost interest in forking out to watch a turkey shoot. How many Ireland soccer internationals have been played out in a half-full Aviva Stadium? Supporters need to feel engaged with their teams and there are cracks in Irish Rugby that need to be addressed. We’re a relatively small nation trying to keep four professional teams competitive, and for some time one of those has been streets ahead of the others. Advertisement IRFU performance director David Humphreys.Ben Brady / INPHO Ben Brady / INPHO / INPHO Yesterday’s announcement the funding model for national player contracts – more commonly referred to as central contracts – will be tweaked for the second time in two years is another open acknowledgement the union needs to do more to lift Connacht, Munster and Ulster to healthier positions. From August of next year the four provinces will be responsible for 40% of the cost of national player contracts. The move represents a massive change to how the system previously operated here. As recently as last season the provinces didn’t have to contribute a single cent from their own budget towards a player on a central contract. Naturally Leinster were the biggest winners as bulk suppliers to the Ireland team, with the arrangement freeing up more money to fund the rest of their squad. That has swiftly changed under David Humphreys, who came in to replace David Nucifora as IRFU Performance Director last year [Humphreys shadowed Nucifora in the job for three months before stepping up fully in June]. In May 2024 the IRFU confirmed the provinces would have to contribute up to 30% of the cost of a national contract, with that figure to be reviewed annually. A year on, that agreement has changed to a flat 40%, kicking in on 1 August 2026. The 42 understands the new terms will come into effect for all existing contracts on that date. So in the case of Leinster, you are probably looking at a couple of million added to the wage bill between the 2024/25 and 2026/27 seasons. They may feel victims of their own success. It will be interesting to see how or if the change impacts Leinster’s ability to produce and recruit elite talent but the more fascinating knock-on effect will come elsewhere, with the IRFU planning to invest the extra funds generated in the player pathways of Connacht, Munster and Ulster. They need it. From next season Ireland’s 14 centrally contracted players will be split across 11 in Leinster, two in Connacht, one in Munster and none in Ulster. Of course, centrally contracted players are not the only big earners in the provinces. A group of players are also on PONI [player of national interest] contracts, where the IRFU tops-up a player’s provincial contract, and some of those would not be too far off what a centrally contracted player might be earning. Leinster winger James Lowe, a guaranteed starter for Ireland, and Munster out-half Jack Crowley, who signed a new deal just last week amid interest from Leicester Tigers, are two examples of important internationals who are not on national player contracts. James Lowe is key for Ireland but not on a central contract.James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO But one look at the Ireland team highlights how uneven the spread of the game’s leading players is here, and that matters. In this year’s Six Nations not a single Ulster player was included in the matchday 23s to play Scotland, Wales or Italy. For the Wales game, 12 of the starting XV were Leinster players, with Mack Hansen the only non-Leinster player in the starting backline. His Connacht teammate Bundee Aki held the same honour against France (and that came with Garry Ringrose suspended). Then look at the pathways of those centrally contracted players. Munster have produced excellent homegrown talent, with Crowley and Craig Casey obvious examples, but the fact is Kildare man Tadhg Beirne will be the only Munster player on a central contract next season. The two centrally contracted players at Connacht, Hansen and Aki, are high-quality imports, and of course, Ulster won’t have a centrally contracted player on their books. That means every Irish-born player on a central contract next season will either be a Leinster player or have come through the Leinster schools system. Tadhg Beirne will be the only Munster player on a central contract next season.James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO The new funding model is aimed at changing that but this is far from an overnight fix. More money being poured into improving player pathways at Connacht, Munster and Ulster is undoubtedly a good thing, but it may take years for that to come to fruition. How big will the gap to Leinster be by then? Munster still swing at the top end of the table, winning the URC as recently as 2023, but they have fallen a level off Europe’s leading clubs. Ulster and Connacht both struggle for consistency and regularly have to scrap to make the URC playoffs – with Connacht in particular in real danger of missing out this season. And while the IRFU can fiddle with the system that stocks the men’s national team, which generates over 80% of the union’s annual revenue, the fundamentals of how rugby operates in Ireland will not change. Leinster may now be putting more money in the pot when it comes to central contracts, but they’ll still be working with the biggest playing base and the strongest schools system. A bigger dent in their wage bill won’t stop the water flowing from that tap. Ciarán Kennedy Viewcomments Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “Latest tweak to central contract funding might not be enough to address imbalance”. 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