Eddie Hearn told the Daily Mail he would “blow it up”. His own client makes the case for keeping the salary cap.
Henry Pollock already clears £1m a year with the salary cap in place. The figure comes from his adviser, Eddie Hearn, who wants the cap scrapped.
“If we come in, we come in as a partnership with them to blow it up and change the sport forever,” the Matchroom Sport chairman told the Daily Mail.
The Eddie Hearn rugby plan has two halves. Sell the players the way boxing sells fighters. Then scrap the cap, so clubs can pay them like fighters too.
He is right about the first half. The Pollock numbers sink the second, and one clause in the Prem’s rulebook shows why.
Should Prem Rugby let him near the cap, or only near the players? Say which below, then read on.
PA’s report of the Daily Mail interview, carried by the Irish Examiner, has Hearn meeting Prem Rugby in two weeks and deciding on rugby afterwards. It came in the week Northampton announced Pollock’s new contract, on Tuesday 22 September. BBC Sport reported that Hearn is due to meet chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor in Monaco.
Hearn says fixing rugby would be “a stroll in the park”
Pollock’s deal runs to summer 2028 and is worth more than £400,000 a year, according to BBC Sport. Sky Sports News said it trebles his old wage.
Eight days before signing, Pollock was talking about living abroad and trying new sports.
Now Hearn wants the league as well as the player. In the rooms where broadcasters spend billions, he told the Daily Mail, rugby “is not spoken about in a very high regard, commercially”.
To BBC Sport he called the job “a stroll in the park for me”, then gave his evidence.
“Look at what Matchroom has done elsewhere. Boxing was dead, darts was non-existent, snooker was stuck in the air. We don’t fail. Our track record is second to none.”
The record is real. In darts and snooker, Matchroom bought control of the professional tour itself.
In rugby Hearn is asking for a partnership.
He is right about the stars, and Pollock is the proof
Hearn made a prediction on The Big Jim Show in March that sounded like a promoter talking.
“…within 6 to 12 months, Henry will be making more money off the pitch than he makes on it.”
Six months on, he told BBC Sport that brand deals have carried Pollock “comfortably over £1m in total annual earnings”.
Four or five more deals will be announced in the next few weeks, he told the Daily Mail. The figures are Hearn’s own and unaudited.
On Tuesday Pollock launched a YouTube channel. His first film was made with his club and Prem Rugby, City AM reported, and it includes him signing the contract.
The Prem wanted this before Hearn asked. In May, Massie-Taylor told PA he wanted to talk to Hearn about “this promoter mindset, which I believe is incumbent on all of us”.
The cap bites in one place: Northampton’s wage bill
And Hearn is right about where. A Prem club can spend £6.4m on senior salaries this season, with one marquee player allowed outside the cap.
Sky Sports News reporter James Cole said on Tuesday that Northampton’s marquee slot already belongs to Fin Smith, the England fly-half. So Pollock’s pay rise counts against the cap, minus the allowances the rules give for a home-grown England player.
Hearn told BBC Sport the whole design is wrong. “Let the players earn,” he said.
“All they hear about is salary caps or one star player per team – marquee names or whatever you want to call it. You don’t want that. You want to say to a young player, ‘hey, come to rugby, you can be a superstar and you can earn a fortune’.”
He says Pollock turned down “a couple of Prem offers” and bids from abroad, some of them “well in excess of seven figures”. Newcastle Red Bulls had offered a deal built to reach £1m a year, RugbyPass reported on Thursday 3 September.
The rulebook he wants scrapped also has a door in it for his business, and a date that matters more than Monaco.
Read also: what the RFU actually buys with Pollock’s £150,000 England contract, the other income that Northampton’s cap never touches.
One clause in the rulebook answers the Eddie Hearn rugby plan
The Prem’s salary regulations already make room for Hearn’s business. Under regulation 3.10, money from a brand that does not sponsor the player’s club does not count against the cap.
It only counts if the Salary Cap Director doubts the deal is genuine and independent of the club. Brands that already sponsor Northampton face a stricter test: their money counts unless the director clears it.
So the cap governs one line of Pollock’s income.
| Pollock’s income | Reported size | Counts against Northampton’s cap? |
|---|---|---|
| Northampton wage, to summer 2028 | More than £400,000 a year (BBC Sport) | Yes, minus home-grown and England allowances |
| England central contract | About £150,000 a year (BBC Sport) | No. Union payments for playing for England are excluded |
| Brand deals through Matchroom | Enough to take his total “comfortably over £1m” (Hearn) | No, if the director accepts they are independent of Saints |
Source: PREM Rugby salary regulations 2026-27, regulations 3.9, 3.10 and 3.19 to 3.22, and schedule 2B.
Everything Matchroom does for Pollock sits in that bottom row. Scrapping the cap would not add a pound to it.
It would change one thing: how much an owner could pay him through the club. The rules watch that side of the table hardest, and for a reason. Saracens were relegated in 2020 for breaching the cap.
The case for tearing it up, and why it fails
Take Hearn’s side properly. Worcester, Wasps and London Irish all went bust between September 2022 and June 2023, with a cap in place. Caution did not save them.
The Top 14 outspends the Prem, and the RFU will not pick England players based abroad. “You could have lost Pollock and it would have been a disaster for English rugby,” Hearn told BBC Sport.
Fair points. None of them argues for scrapping the cap.
Three clubs ran out of money under a ceiling. Remove it and the rest must match whoever has the richest owner, in a league where Sale Sharks lose £8m a year already.
The Top 14, the league that outspends the Prem, still caps its clubs, at €11m this season, the LNR announced in February. Every NFL team is capped too, at $301.2m.
The Prem is moving towards that model. In March it brought in a minimum spend of £5.4m a club from this season, Telegraph Sport reported, and Massie-Taylor said where he stands.
“Our vision is to be the best league in the world… it doesn’t mean we are going to spend beyond everyone else and create wage inflation around the world, paying so all the Galácticos turn up.”
He added that Bath owner Bruce Craig had just written “a nice article” on “the importance of the cap in terms of financial control”. Bath employ Finn Russell, Hearn’s other rugby client.
Monaco gets a shop window. The cap stays.
The date is 1 November. To change the cap for next season, the Prem’s rules need seven votes from directors appointed by the clubs before then.
After that, every one of them has to agree. Hearn’s meetings with Prem Rugby, two weeks away by his account, come before the deadline.
On the record: the cap survives Monaco. Whatever Matchroom agrees with Prem Rugby will be about staging and selling the game. And Pollock’s next four or five deals will sit outside Northampton’s cap, where the rules already put them.
Watch the logos on the first of them. A brand that already sponsors Saints has to pass the stricter test. Any other brand sits outside the cap by default.
Read next: why the new money for Pollock costs Northampton a senior player and a half, the cap arithmetic behind this week’s deal.
Your turn
Two ways to read Hearn.
Either the cap stops English rugby’s owners spending themselves out of business, and Matchroom should stick to selling the players. Or the cap is why a 21-year-old had to negotiate in public to get paid, and the Prem needs someone to blow it up.
Keep the cap, or scrap it? Say which below.
Frequently asked
What has Eddie Hearn said about rugby union?
He told the Daily Mail that Matchroom would come in “as a partnership” with Prem Rugby “to blow it up and change the sport forever”, and that he will probably decide after meeting Prem Rugby in two weeks. BBC Sport reported that he is due to meet chief executive Simon Massie-Taylor in Monaco. He wants the salary cap scrapped.
What is the Premiership rugby salary cap?
£6.4m for a club’s senior players in 2026-27, with allowances for home-grown and England squad players and one marquee player per club outside the cap. From this season clubs must also spend at least £5.4m.
How much does Henry Pollock earn?
His new Northampton deal, to summer 2028, is worth more than £400,000 a year, according to BBC Sport. He also holds an England central contract worth about £150,000. Eddie Hearn says his brand deals take his total comfortably over £1m a year.
Does the Prem salary cap cover sponsorship deals?
Not usually. Under regulation 3.10, money from a brand that does not sponsor the player’s club sits outside the cap unless the Salary Cap Director doubts the deal is genuine and independent of the club. Deals with the club’s own sponsors count unless they pass that test.
