Simon Zebo Report
Simon Zebo recently signed a contract with a prominent french team to play for them instead of Munster. But because of this he can no longer play rugby for the Irish national team. This is because the IRFU pays for some of the irish clubs players wages so that they can be centrally contracted with the IRFU. This is to help irish clubs with less money then say french clubs keep their players. Or in other words player who play for Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster also get money from the IRFU to increase the wages for the individual players to help them stay in Ireland. Because Zebo moved to a french team he is no longer contracted to the IRFU. This happened before when Johnny Sexton whent to play for a french team but the IRFU made an exception for him and still allowed him to play for Ireland. It looks like the IRFU will not be doing that this time as it undermines and defeats the purpose of the centralized contracts.