Gerry Thornley backs players over pay cuts, Premier League restart edges closer

As belts continue to tighten in rugby and the sport feels the financial squeeze of the coronavirus crisis, Ireland's professional rugby players could be set for a 20 per cent pay cut as the IRFU look to make an estimated saving of €13 million. The pay cut applies to all IRFU staff, who will also be moving to a four-day week. And in his column this morning, Gerry Thornley suggests it is unreasonable to subject players to the same cut - especially when their working hours won't be reduced. He writes: "Even for players on provincial contracts ranging from, say, €100,000 to €200,000, it's a shortfall of €20,000 to €40,000 per year. Furthermore, these losses are in the context of a professional playing career which might, if they are lucky, last 10 or even 15 years at an extreme push. These are not jobs for life. They are also short, highly attritional jobs which, in the vast majority of cases, have no tangible benefit for the careers in the real world which take up most of their adult working lives."

The Premier League returns behind closed doors tomorrow night, with Aston Villa welcoming Sheffield United to Villa Park (6pm, Sky Sports) before Arsenal take on Manchester City at the Etihad (8.15pm, Sky Sports). And Villa boss Dean Smith has said he fully supports defender Tyrone Mings for attending a Black Lives Matter march in Birmingham. He said: "There have been questions whether he asked for permission - he doesn't need to ask me for permission to go and stand up for something he believes in." Meanwhile ahead of the restart we have previewed the prospects of every team, their lockdown losers and heroes and their hopes for the run-in. You can read that here.

Elsewhere St Patrick's Athletic chairman and owner Garrett Kelleher has branded FAI chief Gary Owens and his deputy Niall Quinn as failures for their efforts to get the League of Ireland up and running again. In a letter to three FAI board members - Martin Heraghty, Dick Shakespeare and Paul Cooker - Kelleher said: "The domestic game is at a critical juncture where any more wrong or naive moves made by the executives could do even longer lasting damage. They (Owens and Quinn) have lost the confidence of St Patrick's Athletic, I can't speak for anyone else." Kelleher is critical of the financial package proposed to clubs last week, with talks on resuming the postponed 2020 season set to continue tomorrow.

One of the biggest meetings of the flat racing calendar kicks off today - but there will be no spectators present for the opening day of Royal Ascot. And there will also be an unusual lack of international input, with Aidan O'Brien accounting almost exclusively for the Irish challenge over the next few days. Today's seven-race card gets underway at 1.15pm and O'Brien has the favourite for the Queen Anne Stakes (1.50pm) in the shape of Circus Maximus, who heads the market at 3-1 under Ryan Moore.

St Pat’s chairman brands Niall Quinn and Gary Owens ‘a failure’

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Dean Smith ‘fully supports’ Tyrone Mings joining BLM march

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Premier League restart: Team-by-team guide as 2019-20 season resumes

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Champions League set for ‘Final Eight’ tournament in Lisbon

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Elsewhere the Club Players Association has expressed concern the 11-week window being granted to club fixtures as part of the Return to Gaelic Games Roadmap is being undermined by inter-county demands. CPA chair Micheál Briody said: "Suggestions of running of championships in blitz format or shrunk to a very tight timeframe to enable county preparations are sacrilege and will have long lasting implications."

And after a successful return at the weekend the PGA Tour now moves on to Hilton Head in South Carolina for a star-studded event which will have the second-strongest field for a regular tournament in PGA Tour history, with the top six in the current world rankings all set to compete.