Professional player contracts for England Women announced

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is all set to introduce professional player contracts for women’s rugby in England with a total of 48 contracts to be offered in the next season.

From these 48 contracts, a total of 16 full-time deals, are set to be chalked out alongside 16 part-time and 16 short-term deals. The full-time deals will focus on the 15-a-side format while the part-time contracts will be for three days per week and will concentrate on rugby sevens.

On the other hand, the 16 short-term deals will be centred around allowing the players to join residential camps prior to major tournaments like the Rugby World Cup and Six Nations.

This move to award professional contracts is aimed at defending the Women’s Rugby World Cup title in 2017 which England won in 2014.

The chief executive of the RFU, Ian Ritchie asserted that the decision to award professional contracts was aimed at giving the best possible support to further the success of England Women.

“The RFU is committed to supporting the growth of women’s rugby.

“We are immensely proud of England Women’s achievements, and we want to provide the best support to continue this success.

“More women and girls in this country are playing rugby than ever before, and England Women are important role models to encourage more people to try our sport.”

Nicky Ponsford, the head of Women’s performance at the RFU feels that by having more contracted players, England Women will have the best chance at defending the World Cup next year.

“This is a really exciting time for women’s rugby in England.

“We will have more contracted players than ever before to give us the best possible chance of retaining the World Cup in Ireland next August.

“We also recognise that the sevens’ programme is important again next year, with the World Sevens series and qualification for Rugby World Cup Sevens in 2018.

“The girls have proven that they are among the best in the world, delivering consistent results across both the sevens and 15s games already this year, and we want to focus on building on that.”

The list of 16 players who will be awarded the full-time contracts will be revealed in September.