About

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is the governing body that manages rugby across the island of Ireland. Declan McPhillips expertly serves as the organisation’s head of legal and compliance and has enjoyed a distinguished in-house legal career. With rugby being one of Ireland’s most popular sports and with the Irish national rugby team being one of the sport’s most historic and successful sides, McPhillips holds a glamorous and distinguished position in Ireland’s in-house legal market. According to a nominator, ‘McPhillips played a pivotal role in agreements which led to the redevelopment of the country’s national stadium in 2010, the IRFU set up a joint venture with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) to co-own the new stadium and reached a 10-year agreement with insurance company Aviva to sponsor the redevelopment in exchange for exclusive naming rights. He has also managed the IRFU’s numerous sponsorship deals with companies such as Aon, PwC, Guinness, Vodafone and Aer Lingus. In 2017 he led on lobbying efforts regarding the resale of tickets in Ireland following a consultation paper issued on the matter by the Competition and Consumer Policy Section in the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation’. In March 2019, the IRFU signed a partnership agreement with The Sports Office, a sport technology company, to supply a performance management system called “The Rugby Squad” to each province and national teams. This comprises of a bespoke system designed for the management of coaching, sport science, medicine, finance, administration and scouting. This technology is innovative in the rugby world and demonstrates the IRFU and McPhillips’ interest in leading the pack.