Increasing the Premiership salary cap changes nothing, there is a huge club v country conflict coming If the director of rugby decides the money would be better spent on adding three or four squad players to improve strength in depth, he will have to tell the player to look elsewhere. The response from the player will probably be: "OK, I will go to France." The same story as it is at present. So we return to the more important decision that appears to be English rugby's real deterrent to those players seeking their fortune elsewhere - move abroad and you will not be picked for the national team again. We have already seen it in action, in the case of Toby Flood, where coach Stuart Lancaster's stance on not picking players who choose to turn their back on the Premiership, in preference for a dip at the Top 14 and the significant wage increase it brings with it, has been put into immediate action. This is where players need to start looking long and hard at the decisions that are being taken in this current climate. If a player is getting paid £300,000 by his club on this side of the Channel, and he picks up another £150,000-£200,000 a year for playing for his country, he will end up with the best part of £500,000. If you add on the bits and bobs and the chance to land better endorsement contracts, because you are based in the UK, a decent international player can earn £750,000 to £1 million a year. If he chooses to go to France, as Flood has done, he will land himself a contract worth around €750,000 (£620,000) a year. However, there will be no international money and potential earnings from endorsements will be less. When you look at it that way, the economics of going to France are not that great after all. You might just about earn the same, over a period of time, but you have given up the chance of playing for your country. And after all, is that not every schoolboys" dream? The only issue for English rugby would if someone such as England captain Chris Robshaw said they were going to play in France, maybe for one of the Parisian teams. Are the Rugby Football Union and their national coach going to stand by what they said and not pick him because he plays in Paris? Paris is closer to London than Newcastle, after all. Both sides would find themselves in a very difficult position. I think we need to go back to 1996, when the game had just turned professional. The RFU should have centrally contracted all of the best players and leased them out to the clubs. It is what you do with a strong asset. You lease it, knowing it is going to bring you a return. These days, the clubs own the players and lend them, for financial benefit, to the unions. The unions and the International Rugby Board all want to own the game and the reality is, at present, that they do. However, without the players there is no game. There has to be a share in there somewhere. On one side you have got the club, purchasing and owning, on the other there is the union putting restrictions upon players and clubs. Eventually, it will come to a court battle. There is no way around it. And then you have the issue over Europe, which adds more weight to the argument. My belief is that because of European law and restraint of trade, the unions are not going to be able to do anything. We are heading for a big confrontation. The wage cap might be good for the game in England but it highlights, and probably accelerates, the problems that are about to come. Just as in 1996, money is talking again. Back then, players could earn £50,000 a year. Now, as Peter Kenyon mentioned this week, rugby is going to become like football. Over the past 17 years, a top-class rugby player's salary has increased from £50,000 to between £500,000 to £1 million. What are they going to be paid in 10 years? There is one thing for sure, by the time the salaries move into the seven-figure bracket, which is obviously the result of rugby moving alongside football, only the RFU will have any chance of paying players on central contracts. These are interesting times - and fairly difficult ones too.