Northampton Saints fear exodus of stars unless salary cap is raised

Northampton‘s president Keith Barwell fears that the newly-crowned Premiership champions may struggle to keep top stars like George North in future unless salary cap restrictions are lifted.
Majority shareholder Barwell, the driving force behind Saints’ rise to the top, believes the club have only scratched the surface as far as potential is concerned.
But with an expected revenue boom in rugby finances just around the corner following new TV deals in France and a revamped European Rugby Champions Cup, the former publishing magnet fears that Saints’ hopes could be stymied.
Barwell told The Rugby Paper: “We’ve tasted a new dish now and our players and supporters like the taste of it. They’ll be trying to make sure we continue to grow and become the first winners of the European Rugby Champions Cup.
“But there’ll be some problems along the way because there’s so much money going to be coming into the sport through TV and commercial deals that it’s going to be a problem paying players what they’re worth within the salary cap.
“Agents will have their eyes on what’s happening and you can’t blame them for that, but it will be very hard to keep our top stars here.
“We don’t want more money from the RFU – we just want to be allowed to spend what we already earn. When you’re bidding for players, you need to be able to offer market value and we might struggle to do that in future.
“The wage cap is going up a bit this summer but you’ve got top players in Europe now being paid £600-£800,000 and some of our players will get those big offers, too. We’ll simply not be able to keep up on the global scene.”
Barwell, meanwhile, hopes director of rugby Jim Mallinder will remain at Saints long enough to establish a dynasty matching that of Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.
Mallinder, after joining Northampton in 2007, is the Premiership’s third longest serving head honcho – Rob Andrew (Newcastle) and Phil Davies (Leeds) had longer reigns – and has signed a five-year contract extension until 2019.
“It would be very nice to think Jim could emulate Sir Alex,” Barwell said. “If England ever came calling we’d wish him all the best, but I can envisage Jim staying for a long time provided we continue to grow.
“Last week was thrilling to win the Premiership, but I hope we’ve only scratched the surface as far as Northampton is concerned.”
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