The Rugby Players Association’s 2025–26 Impact and Insights Report highlights how collective representation is translating player experiences into stronger welfare protections, greater influence over decision-making and support throughout athletes’ careers.
Independent player associations play a vital role in ensuring athletes have a collective voice in the decisions that affect their working lives. By bringing players together, gathering evidence of their experiences and representing their interests, these organisations can help turn individual concerns into collective action and meaningful improvements across sport.
The Rugby Players Association’s (RPA) new 2025–26 Impact and Insights Report provides a clear example of that work in practice, highlighting how player insight and collective representation are contributing to changes across professional rugby in England.
A strong membership base is fundamental to that role, giving the association a broader mandate to represent players and greater collective strength in discussions with the sport’s decision-makers. 92% of PREM Rugby men are now RPA members, compared with 77% in 2023–24, while women’s membership has grown to more than half of Premiership Women’s Rugby players. Across all categories, membership has nearly doubled since 2023–24.
That growing collective voice is increasingly being reflected in decision-making. During the season, the RPA joined the Men’s Professional Rugby Board Salary Cap Group for the first time and supported the introduction of a salary cap floor and increased rookie minimum wages. The association also launched its first Women’s Rugby Board, providing PWR players with a formal structure for representation.
Player feedback has also helped shape new welfare measures. A 2025 survey found that 36% of players began contact training in their first week of pre-season, while previous RPA research found 89% believed contact training should be regulated. For the 2026–27 PREM season, new measures will include a graduated return-to-contact framework, instrumented mouthguards during contact training and centralised video recording of contact sessions.
Beyond the pitch, the report shows the importance players place on independent support. 92% said access to an RPA Player Development Manager was beneficial to them as elite athletes, 98% said they would feel comfortable discussing their personal wellbeing with their PDM, and 80% felt supported by the RPA towards their post-career development.
The challenges do not end at retirement. Among 319 retired players surveyed in 2026, 45% of men and 44% of women said they had struggled with their identity in retirement, while 95% of all respondents said they would have wanted or currently want some form of physical support during the first two to three years after retirement.
Through its representation structures, player development programmes and Restart charity, the RPA report demonstrates how an independent players’ association can connect athletes’ experiences with the decisions that shape their sport. It also reinforces that the value of collective representation extends beyond the playing field, helping ensure players have the protections, opportunities and support they need throughout their careers and beyond.
Photo credit: IMAGO / PPAUK
Related news
