Premiership rugby clubs are to receive a multi-million pound coronavirus bailout from the Government after opting to put their players on sabbatical during the crisis, The Telegraph can reveal.

County cricket clubs are also discussing following suit after being told doing so would also allow them to access funds made available under the coronavirus job retention scheme announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak just over a week ago.

Some lower league football clubs have already placed their players on what is being called ‘furlough’ – which will see the Government pay 80 per cent of their wages up to a maximum of £2,500 a month – with others expected to follow after the Treasury confirmed salaried athletes were eligible under the scheme.

Newcastle Falcons, who were top of the Championship when the rugby season beneath the Premiership was abandoned last week, have also placed all their players and staff on furlough at the same time as planning pay cuts.

Premiership clubs have already asked their players to take a 25 per cent pay cut, while Wasps have already placed the majority of their non-playing staff on furlough.

Newcastle Falcons
Newcastle Falcons have already placed players and staff on furlough CREDIT: PA
But so precarious are finances at the 12 top-flight teams that they are also looking to reduce their biggest expense further by applying for the Government scheme. That could save them millions collectively over the course of a crisis expected to last for months.

One source told the Telegraph: “Clubs will be furloughing players. It will be en masse. Anybody who’s anybody is trying to work out how to do it. If this crisis last six months, it’s probably going to cost a club £3-£4m, maybe more.

“Taking 25 per cent off the playing staff is not going to come close to solving the problem. It will be a fraction of it.”

Giving an example of a player on £200,000 a year, whose salary had been cut to £150,000, he said furloughing him would allow a club to claim back 20 per cent of his remaining £12,500 monthly wage.

He added: “If you’ve got 100 staff and you can get £250,000 a month, that’s going to be really helpful.”

A Premiership Rugby spokesman said any decision to furlough players was a matter for individual clubs.

The England & Wales Cricket Board, meanwhile, told The Telegraph that it wrote to counties on Friday night with advice on furloughing players and staff.

Essex
Essex celebrate winning County Championship Division One last season CREDIT: Getty Images Europe
That was after the chief executive of Yorkshire, Mark Arthur, revealed the ECB and counties were discussing furloughing county players. Yorkshire and Glamorgan have already done so with a large number of off-field staff.

Using taxpayers’ money to help pay professional footballers, rugby players and cricketers could prove controversial given how much some earn. Even some lower-league footballers are on wages in the thousands of pounds per week, well in excess of the £2,500 a month on offer from the Treasury.

Premiership rugby players are paid up to £1m annually, with England captain Owen Farrell reportedly on £750,000 a year at Saracens, the equivalent of almost £60,000 a month.

Top England cricketers like Ben Stokes are paid around £1m a year by the ECB, which have no immediate plans to ask the Government to top up their salaries.

Until the end of last week, there had been uncertainty whether the likes of footballers, rugby players and cricketers could be furloughed under a scheme designed to protect employees who would otherwise have been laid off.

Getty Images Europe
ECB have no immediate plans to top up the salaries of players such as Ben Stokes CREDIT: Getty Images Europe
One reason for that was players are not in immediate danger of losing their jobs and have even been training at home – as instructed by their clubs – in anticipation of professional sport resuming when the current crisis subsides.

Another reason was that directly-employed sportspeople are usually on fixed-term rather than permanent contracts and cannot be laid off anyway.

But the Treasury confirmed on Friday that neither of these factors would be a bar to an employer applying for the scheme.

It remains unclear whether players would be allowed to carry out promotional work on behalf of their employer if placed on furlough.

The same rugby source said some Premiership teams were considering using only those players with separate image-rights contracts to their playing contracts for such purposes.