Exeter Chiefs donate £350,000 payment from Saracens salary cap fine to charity

Premiership leaders have decided to give the entire sum received from Saracens’s salary cap breach to their official foundation due to the payment being ‘unexpected’

Exeter Chiefs have donated a £350,000 payment from Saracens' salary cap breach to charity (Getty)

Exeter Chiefs have given the £350,000 payment that it received through Saracens’ salary cap breach to its official charity after the £5.36m fine was carved up between the rest of the Premiership stakeholders.

Saracens were docked 35 points and fined a seven-figure fee after an independent review panel found the club had “failed to disclose payments to players” between 2016/17 and 2018/19, which subsequently "exceeded the ceiling for payments to senior players in each of the three seasons”.

The panel found that Saracens had not deliberately broken the regulations, but gave them the maximum punishment regardless that dropped the reigning champions into a relegation fight, with the club currently bottom of the Premiership and 18 points behind 11th-placed Leicester Tigers.

Last week Saracens’ long-serving chief executive Nigel Wray unexpectedly retired from his role, with former club official Edward Griffiths returning as interim CEO.

It emerged at the weekend that the sum of money had been split up and distributed among the other Premiership Rugby clubs, though it could not be confirmed if the carve-up had been made equally among the remaining stakeholders.

However, it was revealed that clubs received the funds in what was a Premiership Rugby decision as much as two weeks’ ago, with the 12 stakeholders that includes Championship side Newcastle Falcons each receiving a healthy share of the fine.

Following vast calls for the money to be allocated instead to those who are significantly in more need of the financial boost, such as grassroots rugby and the amateur game, Exeter have announced that they will not be putting their share into the running of Rob Baxter’s side, but instead have donated the sum to their official foundation as the payment was “unexpected”.

Exeter chairman and chief executive Tony Rowe, who has been one of Saracens’ most outspoken critics over the salary cap breach, said: “Following the unexpected sum of £350,000 being awarded to the club, the board of directors have decided unanimously that this money will be going straight to the club’s charity, the Exeter Chiefs Foundation.

“As this sum was not budgeted for and looking at our own future forecasts, we feel we do not need to absorb this sum of money into the rugby club.

“Given where it has come from, the board felt it should go straight into the Foundation’s funds, which will benefit hugely and use the money to help a great deal of charities and organisations within our local community.”

Last year Premiership clubs made a record £44.4m cumulative lost, with Exeter Chiefs the only side to post a profit of £700,000 – though Bristol Bears are expected to join them once their accounts for the latest financial year are released. Whereas the sound financial standing at Sandy Park will undoubtedly have helped Exeter make the decision to inject the funds into their charity, the same is unlikely to be said across the board in the Premiership, with a number of clubs in desperate need of the cash injection after year after year of losses.

The move to donate the money means that the Exeter Chiefs Foundation has now benefitted from nearly £2m, which is filtered down to a range of charities and organisation who apply for project grants.