Quote ="Ferocious Aardvark"The Gillette thing with Scully may be one of those rare things, though, a genuine unconnected deal negotiated maybe by him and his agent rather than theclub; for example if he'd moved to 9say) Leeds or Warrington, would his deal with Gillette have been affected in any way? I doubt it. Put another way, is there any obvious reason why St Helens would or even might have been paying Scully a lower wage, by reason of the Gillette deal? I find it hard to think that Gillette would pay over and above the going rate to him, to save Saints money?
Perhaps the question, "Would the deal likely continue uninterrupted upon a player transfer?" might often resolve the "unconnected" question.
Do you think that all the brave talk about clamping down on tax avoidance scams may turn out to have an impact on RL? I am no expert, but given that these deals almost always seem to involve overseas stars, I don't see it. And yet . . . by analogy of the government's stated intention to void scams like evading stamp duty by owning shares in a company that owns a house, rather than owning a house, would they not also be able to say no, payments for services to some offshore company look feel and smell more like PAYE wages and so you (the club) will be taxed as such?
Or is it all just hot air?'"
Scully/Gillette may have been. We'll never really get to know the extent to which the club organised or brokered the deal, relative to how much the player's agent did. Personally, I have always assumed that club and agent work together on things like this, but that can only be an opinion.
Its different in the NRL, it seems. Witness the recent hoo-ha about Cherry-Evans. His club is up to the cap so stated publically it was desperately seeking third-party income to improve his package. IIRC in the NRL third party-paid image rights is a far more open subject - and IIRC there is a cap on the total amount! Summat like AUD 0.5m rang a bell, I think per player but I could be wrong? Wasn't exceedintg THIS cap one of the things that Storm and (earlier) the Doggies got done for? All a bit hazy memory, so I'd appreciate it if someone could improve on that.
IMO THAT is what we should have here though. Then at least we could have a bit more transparency about how some clubs were seemingly getting more bang for their bucks?
As for the impact already of anti-avoidance/evasion actions by HMRC - no, its not hot air at all.. The impact has already been very very real. For example, IIRC EBTs have been largely disallowed as a vehicle, as have some of the pension vehicles that were used for overseas players. And, if I am right, HMRC have already capped what club-paid image rights are allowable - and in any case, my understanding was that the RFL had anyway taken steps regarding regsistering new contracts with image rights clauses (as in...they were refusing to do so at one time until all this mess was sorted out). But, as I said, there is not a lot HMRC can do if (say) an overseas business pays (for example) a substantial sum to a non-dom player's bermudan-domiciled personal services company for "services rendered", or if (say) a UK business paid a player's partner £50k for "services rendered".
