Being a referee at the Rugby World Cup cannot be easy. There is a huge amount of pressure to get all of the major decisions corrected. So you would think that these referees are well paid for all of this pressure on them.
How much does a Rugby World Cup referee get paid? Rugby referees tend to get paid per game, with the 2023 figure believed to be somewhere around £5,000 per game. This will be slightly less for the officials running the line.
Finding out the exact figure that rugby referees can expect to earn at the 2023 Rugby World Cup is very difficult to find. Unlike with the players, there is very little information on how much rugby referees get paid. What we do know is that rugby referees usually get paid per game.
You would therefore imagine that rugby referees will be paid per game at this tournament as well. It is believed that rugby referees will get paid around £5,000 per game that they are involved in during the 2023 Rugby World Cup. That figure is an estimate as the bonus the referees get from it being such a big tournament is hard to calculate.
There is also a very good chance that all of the rugby referees will have their expenses covered while working at the tournament. In 2023 there will be referees from England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Wales and many other countries. These referees have to travel quite a distance to get to France for the tournament.
They will also likely have to travel within France to the locations of the different tournament games. The expenses associated with this travel and hotel stays will likely be covered by the Rugby World Cup for this tournament.
How much does a Premiership Rugby referee get paid?
Being a referee in Premiership Rugby is not easy, but these officials do get compensated pretty well for making the crucial decisions in English Rugby games.
It is believed that Premiership Rugby referees earn around £1,500 per game that they are involved in. This figure is usually the top level of referees in the English Premiership. It is most likely that guys like Wayne Barnes and Luke Pierce are the ones earning around £1,500 per game in Premiership Rugby.
This is likely only the base earnings which Premiership Rugby referees earn. There is a good chance that the league also covers transport costs for these referees. They will need to go all over England for games, from as south as Exeter all the way to up north in Newcastle. This is extremely costly for Premiership Rugby referees and the Premiership will likely cover these expenses for the officials.
There are also a lot of opportunities for Premiership Rugby referees to earn more money in a season. The majority of Premiership Rugby referees will also be referees for international rugby. So these officials will still be getting paid even while there are not Premiership Rugby games being played.
With this included, there have been estimations that top Premiership Rugby referees will earn around £100,000 per year as they are getting paid more money for international games than they are for games in Premiership Rugby.
Who is the best Premiership Rugby referee?
Premiership Rugby has some brilliant referees, with many also being officials for some of the biggest games in the world. Therefore it is not easy to say exactly who is currently the best referee in Premiership Rugby.
At the moment it certainly seems like Wayne Barnes is the best referee in Premiership Rugby. Having started playing rugby when he was just eight years old, Barnes took to refereeing when he was just 15 years old.
Barnes became a professional rugby referee in 2005, making his test debut just one year later. He became a Premiership Rugby referee very early into his professional career and has been an official in the Premiership ever since. Barnes has also refereed some of the biggest games in rugby.
In 2010, Barnes officiated his first Heineken Cup Final, having refereed his first Premiership Rugby final in 2009. It was an incredibly impressive feat for a referee who was so young like Barnes. It is even more impressive that Wayne Barnes has continued to referee at a very high level for more than 15 years.
In 2017, Barnes broke the all time Premiership Rugby appearance record for a referee with 191 in the league. He has now refereed more than 250 Premiership Rugby games and is by far the most experienced official in the league. Barnes was the referee for the 2022 Premiership Rugby Final.
There are a lot of other international quality referees currently playing in the Premier League. Luke Pierce is one of the best referees in the world and has featured in some massive games. Matthew Carly, Karl Dickson and Christophe Ridley are some of the other excellent referees who are officiating in Premiership Rugby at the time of writing.
How much do England rugby players get paid per international game?
While England Rugby players earn most of their money through the lucrative contracts the players have with their teams, they are also paid for each international game that they feature in.
England Rugby players get paid around £23,000 per game that they play. This is the match fees that each player receives whenever they play for their country. This might not seem like a lot, but when you consider that England will usually play at least 10 games in a year, then the money can certainly rack up for these players.
It is also even more money in Rugby World Cup years. England could play as many as 15 games in a year when you take into account Rugby World Cup warm up games as well as the games in the tournament itself. So this certainly add s up and it is not included in the contract that the player’s have with their domestic team’s which can be extremely valuable.