We present a link rewiring mechanism to produce surrogates of a network where both the degree distribution and the rich-club connectivity are preserved. We consider three real networks, the autonomous system (AS)-Internet, protein interaction and scientific collaboration. We show that for a given degree distribution, the rich-club connectivity is sensitive to the degree-degree correlation, and on the other hand the degree-degree correlation is constrained by the rich-club connectivity. In particular, in the case of the Internet, the assortative coefficient is always negative and a minor change in its value can reverse the network's rich-club structure completely; while fixing the degree distribution and the rich-club connectivity restricts the assortative coefficient to such a narrow range, that a reasonable model of the Internet can be produced by considering mainly the degree distribution and the rich-club connectivity. We also comment on the suitability of using the maximal random network as a null model to assess the rich-club connectivity in real networks. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.