Women’s Elite Rugby, the American start-up competition announced last month, could “produce hundreds of professional rugby players in a very short time,” said an American Eagles international, announcing a “great” development for elite women’s sport.
“There is skepticism,” said Emily Henrich, a Dartmouth graduate who plays center for the national team, “because there is a lack of money and resources in the world for women’s sports. But that is obviously changing.”
After a meeting in the middle of the player representatives and the WER Board of Directors, new details have emerged about the plans for WER’s inaugural season, which includes the first significant update since the announcement of plans to professionalize American women’s rugby.
The meeting, which included representatives of the seven clubs of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), the top amateur competition, focused on player repayment plans and the Club-League relationship.
Sources have said that WER’s inaugural season will not be entirely professional. Players receive monthly scholarships, although most expect to be in full-time employment. The financing of the remuneration of the players, which has been raised from private investors, would come closer to its objectives. Teams should increase training schedules, as most currently only train twice a week.
The League will use a unified Format similar to that of Major League Rugby and Major League Soccer, which means that the teams will be led by investor-operators who own shares in the League.
Who will therefore have some control over the recruitment of staff and the recruitment of players, although the teams will be consulted. It is still unclear whether the League will adopt the teams’ trademark rights, a concern for more established WPL teams.
WER’s introductory statement outlined the goal of creating a league of six to eight teams, although it is not clear which of the seven WPL teams will play. The participating teams should be confirmed by January.
The players are waiting for clarification on the details, including whether the players and staff will have to move, the future of the WPL teams that will not move to WER and the fate of the WPL after 2025. a document on WER’s LinkedIn page indicates that many of these policies are “under development”.
A lack of details in the initial announcement caused skepticism among WPL players, although sources said that the WER Board has since proactively answered questions and changed the feeling from cautious optimism to outright excitement.
Before the recent meeting with the WER Board of Directors, Akwele “Q” Okine and Amanda Schweitzer, co-captains of the Boston-based Beantown RFC-for which the writer’s sister, Lauren Ferridge, plays in the front row -reported a mood of cautious optimism. After the meeting, they said that this had given way to a wave of confidence in the leadership of the WER.
The two players described the WPL amateur format as “financially distressing” and welcomed the prospect of compensation for the time spent on Rugby, a kind of labor Of love so far.
“We are all very interested in Rugby and would like to play at the next level, but there are a lot of limiting factors that make it really difficult,” Okine said. “We pay for all our flights, there are other personal costs that we incur and we are constantly raising funds as a team.”
The need for professionalization is clear, but the lack of early communication in the middle of the WER and WPL players who will occupy the new competition has raised the concerns of the players. Where the WER’s introductory statement stated that the players had the opportunity to be “fairly compensated for their dedication to excellence,” no details followed for almost four weeks.
The delay worried the players. Okine said: “We are really excited about the project… but many players were surprised by the initial announcement. We have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers.”
But, she said, “at the last meeting, many questions were answered and answered quite competently. It looks like things are going really well… other teams are on board, there is more clarity on what it looks like for our individual club. [The Beantown players] are very excited to find out where women’s rugby will go in the United States next year.”