Inducing breach of contract.

I don't think Sale would get away with playing dumb and pretending they didn't know he was contracted to Cas.

The problem they have is that if Cas haven't accepted his retirement/resignation, he is still contracted to Cas right now,

Officially, he might not be. A contract is between the employer and the employee. If he considers himself not to be employed by Castleford then he isn't.
All Castleford can do is make a claim against him for their financial loss and move on.

They're not going to pretend they didn't know he was contracted, they've reportedly made an offer to Cas for him. They will claim that when they were rejected by Cas they only spoke to Solomona to gauge his thoughts on signing for Sale when his contract ran out with Castleford, then anything he has done has been of his own decision. Added to that the fact they're claiming they haven't offered him a contract and that several RU clubs are looking to sign him and it's near impossible to lay any blame on Sale for this. As to Solomona, if Cas have rejected his retirement then they will need to continue paying him unless it explicitly states in his contract that they can stop his wage... If it doesn't and they have stopped it then Solomona could take Castleford to an ET for withholding his wage

It's probably going to end up as an out of court settlement, where Sale give Solomona a "signing fee" which he is instructed to give to Castleford as a means of buying himself out of his contract. The payment will be for an "undisclosed sum" with Castleford saying that they have mutually accepted Solomona's retirement from Rugby League and will be retaining his League Registration for the remained of his contract with them.

Other than this, it has implications far beyond our little sports, where if players are able to break contract then clubs will also be able to break contracts with players without financial implications who are injured/under performing. This won't just be for rugby but will stretch to all sports as the case will be cited when/if a player tries to take a club to court. It's a dangerous game which has the possibility to effectively make all sports contracts null and void

He can't just decide to end that contract.

Yes he can. It's a breach of contract, and he becomes liable for any financial loss to the employer, but the days of forced labour ended decades ago.

Except they know he is contracted to Castleford and are making him an offer.

If Sale know that Solomona has a contract with Cas. Then they know they cannot discuss one with him. If Solomona decides to retire, he still needs to be released from his contract with Cas. He doesn't get to say the word retirement and all his obligations disappear. He is still under contract.


It wouldn't just be sports, it would be huge amounts of people in huge amounts of jobs.

Not so. If Solomona has committed the repudiatory (first fundamental) breach of contract, Castleford are entitled to dismiss him and pursue him for the financial loss caused by his repudiatiry breach.

How can you breach a contract which has ended? You can't.

He must satisfy that contract in one way or another, which could be financial recompense.

Because in this case, the ending is the breach. The day he didn't report to work and informed Castleford he did not intend to do so, he breached his contract and it therefore ended.
He should know that Castleford may seek to gain financial recompense, which is what seems to be happening. Unfortunately, I suspect his agent failed to mention the fact Castleford may pursue him personally.

The ending is not the breach, and nor is it reasonable to assume the breach is the ending.

The breach is not reporting to work. Not reporting to work whilst breaching the contract, does not end it. Solomona could turn up to work tomorrow and rightly assume that he could carry on with his contract (Cas could at anytime end that contract if they perceive his time spent AWOL to be gross misconduct, but would still need to follow the process for ending that contract as set down in it)

I was thinking more of this case in particular, assuming what is suspected is true.
Given what we 'know', Solomona's contract did end when he failed to report for work and told Castleford he didn't intend to do so. He didn't consider himself to be employed by Castleford (and therefore his contract has ended) so there is no requirement for Castleford as the (previous) employer to follow any procedures at all because he is no longer an employee.

Put simply though, the fact seems to be that he has committed the repuditory breach of contract at some point. Castleford are entitled to seek compensation for their financial loss.

We don't know Solomona's contract has ended at all. In fact, Cas are quite clearly and explicitly saying that the contract is still in place.

It does not follow that because Solomona no longer considered himself employed by Castleford Tigers that his contract has ended.

I'm not sure Castleford have said this since Solomona didn't report for the beginning of pre-season.
As you say though, we don't actually "know" much.

How do you calculate the consequential loss suffered by Cas?

Hopefully its more than the 40k a year they were allegedly paying him - no wonder he wanted off if that is true

I would imagine it will be guided by:
The value of the three offers Castleford received and rejected.
The value of the "extra" salary Solomona earned after signing a contract extension, which enhanced his salary on the basis he would remain an employee for longer (up to the end of the 2018 season).
Loss of direct player sponsorship. Castleford had an agreement with a company to be the matchday sponsor for Solomona which will now be lost.
Given these, I imagine it will be 150-200k (as a guess).
Castleford are also likely to claim legal costs if they win.
I hope Solomona has a lot of money saved up, or he may find any increase in his salary is being paid to Castleford for the next couple of years.

Solomona is suspended for not turning up to pre-season training and is still a Castleford player.
The argument that he can just retire and take up union will be contested in court, Rugby League is not just another sport a precendent has been set with many examples of transfer fees been payed between union and league clubs in the past and with a £300,000 offer rejected a judge will decide whether Sale and Solomona are being underhanded.
They don't have to have done anything illegal by current law ,this is a test case backed by the RFL and quite frankly I would expect SKY would take a keen interest in this case too considering the implications to the sport that they have spent billions on securing the exclusive rights to.
Maybe Sale still think they are taking on little old Cas.

Fair enough.

Would have been a fantastic bit of business by Cas if true.

I wonder what Phil Clarke's view on all this?. If his brother,Solomona & Sale are successful in all this get ready for more "retirements" of young, talented players in S.L.

R.U clubs will have a hit list drawn up already mark my words.

So would I. He's never afraid to express an opinion. The actions of his brother could have serious long term consequences for the quality of the sport he commentates on.

I agree. They can throw money at all manner of players without the cost of a transfer and if it doesn't work out let them retire back from Union into League.

We wouldn't be able to ban them from our sport as we need all the stars we can get.

What other sport would tolerate Willie Mason for example?

We need names to try and sell the game.

Long term I can see the RFU having a plan to absorb the RFL and place us as a similar offshoot of their game such as 7s.

Balls to that. Solomona should be banned from RL for at least the remaining years on his Cas contract. And we don't need "names" to sell the game, if we do then what the hell are the RFL doing?

Following this conversation a few days a go, I have been spending my spare time reading up on the legal premise of receiving offers leading to value. Whilst I have learnt a lot about trademark law I haven't really seen anything I can relate yet.

That being said, the fundamental premise will be, have Castleford lost out on that transfer fee directly because of Solomona's actions? If Castleford had rejected the offers before Solomona became subject to disciplinary proceedings (and that is an assumption on my behalf), then it is conjecture that Castleford would receive further offers of equal/ higher value. It would be up to Castleford to prove that another club were planning to bid when Solomona took his leave (I wouldn't assume they would have to prove value, as its an easy jump of logic that a club knowing Castleford had rejected X that they would have to offer at least X as well). If they cannot prove that, then I cannot see how Castleford can include this as part of their damages.

Any truth in the rumour Phil Clarke owes a percentage of his brothers agency?. If true way to go Phil...assisting in asset stripping the sport that you claim to love and commentate on!

Greedy lover....if there are any more "retirements", A warm welcome awaits you next season at R.L grounds I think!

The fundamental premises will be has Solomona breached his contract, have Cas lost out because of that breach, did Sale induce Solomona to breach that contract.

If Solomona did breach the contract then Cas's losses aren't just a transfer fee (I don't think Sale will be comforted by the precedent for cross code transfer fees. They are relatively high) but merchandising, prize money, etc etc.