THE RACE to secure the signature of Israel Folau is heating up, with Sale Sharks reportedly making a £750,000-a-season bid for the dual international.
The Rugby Paper reported in their weekly Sunday edition that the Sharks, who are on the lookout for a new fullback with Mike Haley and Will Addison both heading to Ireland at season’s end, have offered the star Wallaby £750,000-a-year to join them in the English Premiership.
If he was to join the club, where former Wallabies golden boy James O’Connor currently plays, he would be on the same coin as Kurtley Beale was during his one-year stint with Wasps last year, which made him the highest paid player in the English Premiership at the time.
In a fascinating tell-all column for the Players Voice last week, Folau said that he had multiple offers on the table and could easily walk away from Australian Rugby.
“There have been things written about me angling to get a release from my Rugby Australia deal to pursue an NRL contract. That simply isn’t true. There have been rugby offers from the UK, Europe and Japan that are way above anything I could earn in Australia.”