Official List Of Rugby Unions Top 5 Earners Includes Two Premiership Players

Wednesday, 14 December 2022 at 20:25

byRugby Rucker

A total of two Premiership players feature in the sports top five biggest earners, according to the latest figures released.

#4=. Dan Biggar (Toulon) - £800k

The Welsh playmaker has joined French club Toulon with immediate effect from Northampton Saints at the players request.

Dan Biggar of Northampton Saints kicks the penalty to take the lead during the European Champions Cup, Quarter-final match between Exeter Chiefs and Northampton Saints at Sandy Park on 20 Sept 2020. Photo: Phil Mingo/PPAUK.

Dan Biggar facts:

Biggar has twice been selected to tour with the British and Irish Lions (2017 & 2021)
On 7 December 2015, Biggar won the BBC Cymru Sports Personality of the Year Award
Biggar came through the Ospreys development pathway, having attended Gowerton Comprehensive School in Swansea
The fly-half has his own routine before kicking goals, which fans now call “The Biggarena” after Los Del Rio’s 1995 hit, Macarena

#4=. Maro Itoje (Saracens) - £800k

When Itoje was rumoured to be interested in joining Racing 92 last year, club president Jacky Lorenzetti let slip that the lock wanted €1million for the deal to go through.

Exact figures on Itoje's current salary at Saracens vary but it is widely reported that he is bringing home in excess of £800,000.

Maro Itoje of Saracens during the Gallagher Premiership Rugby Final Match between Leicester Tigers and Saracens at Twickenham Stadium on 18 June 2022. Photo: Tom Sandberg/PPAUK

Maro Itoje facts:

He doesn’t enjoy drinking beer
He likes to collect art in his spare time
As a schoolboy, Itoje played several sports including basketball, football, rugby and athletics, representing England at U17 level in shot put
Maro got a rugby scholarship to London Harrow school when he was 11. He then studied for a Politics degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Bloomsbury, London at the same time as starting his rugby career
He is also the cousin of Bath’s loosehead-prop Beno Obano
The lock was born Oghenemaro Miles Itoje in Camden, London on 28 October 1994 to Nigerian parents

#2=. Cheslin Kolbe (Toulon) - £850k

The speedster hit the financial jackpot with his summer switch from Toulouse to Top 14 rivals Toulon. He now warns an annual salary of €1million after they buy out the remainder of his contract from the recent league/Champions Cup double winners.

#2=. Finn Russell (Racing 92) - £850k

The talented fly-half signed a new three-year deal with Racing 92 last year. The Rugby Paper report he is earning as much as £850,000 with the Paris-based club.

Finn Russell facts:

His father played a lot of racket sports, and worked in sports administration, including as Director of Domestic Rugby for the Scottish Rugby Union
After secondary school, he pursued an apprenticeship for three years as a stonemason, in a business owned by a family friend, whilst his rugby developed
Russell has been nicknamed ‘Russell the Muscle’ due to having a somewhat slender build for a modern-day rugby player
Fly-half Russell was capped with the Barbarians against England during the mid-year rugby tests
In 2013 Russell received the John Macphail Scholarship, linked with New Zealand’s Lincoln University

#1=. Charles Piutau (Bristol Bears) - £1m

For some time, the speedstee has been reported to be earning £1m at Bristol Bears and he became the first player in British rugby to do so when he joined the club from Ulster.