Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Exeter boss Rob Baxter explains last month's 10-hour payroll delay

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Exeter boss Rob Baxter has insisted there was nothing sinister behind the club’s players getting paid 10 hours late last month, the director of rugby instead insisting a clerical error was to blame.

ADVERTISEMENT

The Gallagher Premiership lost three clubs to financial problems last season – Worcester, Wasps and London Irish – and the 2023/24 club season in England began with the September collapse of Jersey Reds, last season’s Championship champions.

However, Baxter dismissed the recent worrying speculation about the Sandy Park club and instead explained that human error was the reason behind the unwanted headlines.

Video Spacer

Rugbypass TV

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

Join us

Video Spacer

Rugbypass TV

Watch rugby on demand, from exclusive shows and documentaries to extended highlights from RWC 2023. Anywhere. Anytime. All for free!

Join us

Speaking to DevonLive, he said: “There is no story except that three other Premiership clubs have gone bankrupt recently, that is what makes it a story.

“The players weren’t paid a day late, they were paid on the same morning they were meant to be paid. The reality is we have an automated system that gets put to a bank with all the details of the payroll and the account the money comes out of and that normally drops into the players’ account at midnight on the day they get paid.

Related

“It hadn’t been paid by seven or eight o’clock in the morning and I was made aware and contacted the accounts department here (at Sandy Park) and they were already aware of it and talking to the bank. Quite simply someone had entered an error in the account name or number which means the automated payroll didn’t go.

“They were all paid by 10am. The problem is that at some stage in those few hours someone has texted someone else asking if they have been paid and a journalist has got hold of it.

ADVERTISEMENT

“The club are looking into the scenario that if people are making a big issue out of it in a false way and it costs us financially then the club are looking at our legal position because ultimately everyone has been paid on the correct day of the month.

“There seem to be a couple of stories around making more of it than that. If that were to make us lose sponsors then there is a financial aspect to it. The club are looking on it very negatively because the club have done nothing wrong. Everyone has got paid on time.

“The only reason it has probably come out is because someone has had a panic at some stage about why they haven’t got paid. We, like a lot of the other clubs, have got players who have been at clubs that have gone bankrupt who have had the same story.

“They don’t get paid one day and then… But I was sat in a meeting with the lads and said you are all going to get paid in the next couple of hours and before the end of the meeting they had all got paid.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Exeter are currently third in the Premiership after last Sunday’s last-gasp Henry Slade penalty secured them victory over Gloucester.

They now travel to bottom-side Newcastle next Sunday looking for their first away win in the league since an October 2022 success against Bristol at Ashton Gate.

Related

ADVERTISEMENT

LIVE

{{item.title}}

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

0 Comments
Be the first to comment...

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

J
JW 3 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

287 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Five legends to be inducted into World Rugby Hall of Fame Five legends to be inducted into World Rugby Hall of Fame
Search