R360: Ireland will not select players who join breakaway league

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) has confirmed that Ireland’s men’s and women’s players who join the breakaway R360 competition will be ineligible for international selection.

R360 – fronted by former England international Mike Tindall – plans to launch in October 2026 with lucrative contracts and a reduced fixture schedule for players.

Organisers for the tournament, which is seeking World Rugby ratification, claims to have agreements in place with close to 200 men’s players, while they have reportedly targeted, external members of England’s Women’s Rugby World Cup-winning squad.

However, in a joint-statement issued on Tuesday, the national unions of Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, Scotland, France and Italy said the R360 model appears designed to “generate profits and return them to a very small elite”.

It added that the rebel circuit has not met with unions to discuss its proposals.

“We all welcome new investment and innovation in rugby; and support ideas that can help the game evolve and reach new audiences; but any new competition must strengthen the sport as a whole, not fragment or weaken it,” read the statement.

“Among our roles as national unions, we must take a wider view on new propositions and assess their impact on a range of areas, including whether they add to rugby’s global ecosystem, for which we are all responsible, or whether they are a net negative to the game.

“R360 has given us no indication as to how it plans to manage player welfare; how players would fulfil their aspirations of representing their countries, and how the competition would coexist with the international and domestic calendars so painstakingly negotiated in recent years for both our men’s and women’s games.

“The R360 model, as outlined publicly, rather appears designed to generate profits and return them to a very small elite, potentially hollowing out the investment that national unions and existing leagues make in community rugby, player development, and participation pathways.”