LIST | 5 rugby players who turned down mega contracts

Let’s take a look at five players who declined multi-year, in some case multi-million pund deals.

The former England and Lions winger turned down an offer to leave Harlequins and become the highest paid winger in the world. Monye didn’t make the move to France, and played for Quins throughout his career.

“I had a few offers to go to France,” he said.

“The best and biggest offer I got was from Racing.

“They were offering me three times my Harlequins wages and at the time it would have made me the highest paid winger in the world,” he added.

He ejected a lucrative £2.5m contract offer from Racing 92 to sign a new two-year extension with Leicester Tigers, committing himself to the Premiership club until June 2021.

The 27-year-old England international had been offered an eye-watering deal to move to the Top 14 side, understood to be worth around £830,000-a-year, that would have resulted in the end of his England career due to the RFU’s policy of not selecting players based abroad.

Tuilagi instead signed a new deal, believed to be around a 25 per cent increase on his previous £450,000-a-year deal that will net him more than £1m over the next two seasons, to see him stay at Welford Road until the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa.

According to the Telegraph, the Yorkshire club were ready to make a third bid to attract All Blacks giant Jonah Lomu to England in 2001 - and offer him the chance to star in Super League and for Leeds Tykes in the Zurich Premiership. They were considering a deal which would see 6ft 5ins Lomu play both rugby codes. A £500,000 a year offer for three years was reportedly on the table but this deal never happened.

This deal almost looked guaranteed to happen before the opportunity to rejoin the England fold returned, with the fly-half turning down a £1m contract. He instead joined Gloucester and starred for them in his debut season, scooping multiple awards.

Hot on the heels of landing fly half Danny Cipriani for next season, Wasps reportedly made an audacious attempt to bring David Pocock to the Premiership in a potential deal that would make the Australia flanker the highest paid rugby player in the world. According to would offer him a package in excess of the £1.4 million.