A couple of things

Paying somebody more money doesnt neccessarily make them any better at their job

An employee's worth is essentially defined by what profit they can make a business

And how on earth to you a) define and b) police such a nebulous concept as a "well run business" ?

Godammit, the North Koreans really have infiltrated!!!!

This is England, what I spend MY money on is MY f*****g business!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whether I'm an astute business man, a local "wide-boy" or just a bloody lucky Lotto Winner, it's mine and no a******e should be able to tell me what I can or can't spend it on.

The rules should simply be there to STOP owners taking out loans against "club assets" or when spending money, doing it as a "loan" to the club and ensuring that taxes and all other legal commitments (ie Public Liabilty Insurance, etc) are paid promptly! Other than that, if I wanna spend £10,000,000 (of MY OWN Money) stuffing my squad with Mercenaries, thats my BLOODY Business!!!!!!

You may be able to give your 50% pay rise and go bust in a year. But you can't collude 20th your competitors to cut wages by 50% then declare yourself businessman of the year for cutting costs. You haven't cut costs. You have exploited someone.

As for it providing clubs with money for grounds and Jnr programmes a) what kind of business gets their staff to pay for cap ex? And b) where is it happening? We are 13 years in to the cap being as it is, where is this comp full of great grounds? Where are these brilliant Jnr programmes? Because after 13 years of the cap we are 3rd in a 3 horse race and some grounds are falling down around us and clubs have just decided to completely restructure our game to remove any responsibility for having good grounds or Jnr programmes

Paying a club trained player 500k a year us no cheaper than paying Inglis 500k a year. And with the situation we have now it would if anything make the playing field less level and it would be nigh on impossible for a promoted team to put anything like a competitive squad out.

We give them parameters to work within. No administrations, x amount min to be spent on marketing, facilities to be of x standard, x amount of juniors, x amount turnover etc etc etc.

and on the worth the employee places on it. It is fundamental wrong to not allow a man to sell his labour free from collusion.

Nobody on here would accept it it a smile on their face

Your first point I agree with, however the second is only true in some circumstances, an employee's worth is essentially defined by what someone is actually prepared to pay them most of the time.

There are many examples of companies employing a "high-profiler" at a loss, particularly in sport, sometimes hoping for more revenue returns but sometimes just to give a competitive edge.

Sounds like a 1950s soviet ten year plan to me!

I'm with CrusaderPete on this one - these are limited companies, owned by individuals or groups of shareholders and I just cannot see how some organisation like the RFL can impose a set of conditions that are by their nature arbirtrary - for instance define "marketing" - what do you do when a club comes up with some new idea that isn't on your prescribed list of "marketing activities"? What happens when a club misses your "x amount turnover" by £1

Sorry - but such ideas would never work.

Players are free to ply their trade wherever they want, they are free to move to wherever pays the most money or to modify their trade to earn more

If you want ' Charities ' rather than businesses , then yes, if thats the case remove all restrictions and have a truely open market

Except sport is different to business. There aren't dedicated fans of businesses like there are of sports clubs. And if BP, Tesco etc go under someone else rises to take their place, it doesn't spell the potential end of the oil or supermarket industry.

There are only a very small amount of pro RL clubs. For 1 to go under is a disaster for not only the company that owns that club but also the entire RL "industry".
So actually how much you spend, on what and the financial status of your club is very much someone else's business. It's the fans business, it's other clubs business and it's definitely the RFL's business.

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but why shouldn't a club borrow against its assets? Leeds have considerable assets and need to upgrade the stadium. They'll have to borrow in some fashion to pay for the upgrade, why can't they borrow against their assets?

It's not where the money is raised from that's the issue, it's what it's spent on and how it's to be paid back.

Well except they aren't free to negotiate their wage in a free market as an RL player. There is a cap on salaries. We called it a salary cap. I see no point in the mental gymnastics that are required to pretend that a salary cap, called a salary cap, put in place to cap salaries, justified on the basis that it keeps wages low does not limit a players earnings.

If it doesn't limit players earnings there would literally be no point to it and it couldn't by any definition be called a salary cap.

More importantly it's the players livelihood.

And I'm pretty sure that BPs contractors would be effected by BP going under. And I'm certain Tescos suppliers would be effected by it

While we argue the rights and wrongs of our salary cap Saracens ceo calls for the total abolition of The RU cap in response to Dan Carters move to Racing Metro.

There's a salary cap in lots of jobs. No matter how well I perform in my current role I will not be allowed to negotiate a higher salary, there's an upper ceiling and it's fixed. So trying to use the argument that players are being hard done by just doesn't wash.

Indeed, if you work for the NHS, the 4th largest employer in the world your wage is restricted to the pay scales for your job.

Correct and of course 'old Smokey' knows this and to coin/paraphrase one of his phrases, more importantly so do the players. It will be no great shock to lads in the academy what their potential income will be, they won't reach 21 suddenly think where's my £20k per week.

Although I agree with the sentiment that there are plenty of players that deserve to be paid more, when you compare what they do week in week out to other sports, the market is what the market is.

I never said players are being hard done by, it is (as Malcolm McClaren points out for dairy farmers) their career choice.

Nor do I deny that there are many horrendously low paid , dead end jobs out there!

My disgruntlement is about people being told what they can and what they can't spend their money, a situation which has already proven to NOT protect clubs from financial difficulties/bankruptcy/insolvency etc.

Is that an internal policy for the company you work for or a binding agreement negotiated by your company and its competitors.

Yes they are, what % of a clubs cap they are paid is up to them and the club ,if they dont like it they can move clubs, move to another country or to a different industry, like anybody else

As has been alluded to, for any club to operate it needs other clubs, true businesses dont, if Toyota were the only maufacturer of cars it doesnt spell the end of motoring , with the introduction of ' financial fair play ' the vast majority of sports in the world have or are introducing salary caps of 1 form or another, for RL to contemplate doing the opposite would kill the sport stone dead

The NHS has an internal pay structure. They have not colluded with their competitors to limit wages industry wide.

I agree, Sport is different to business.

I don't believe owners should be able to borrow against the clubs assets, because owners come and go, and how many more times do we see a club lose it's home once their fortunes blow differently. Owners are basically gambling that the current market will remain as is, so they can make those payments, when they can't because of a change in fortune or the market itself, it's the club that suffers, not the idiot who put the club in that position!

Then it isn't freely negotiated is it. Within your first sentence you explain the collusion and restrictions. They are free to do other jobs, so is anyone. They aren't free sell their skills as rl players in an open market

Pretty much every business has relationships with other companies and would be effected by their demise.

FFP is not a salary cap and football did not think it could practically or legally apply one and RU are likely to get rid of theirs and clubs have spoken publicly about their belief it is illegal.

I think the NHS is a good example. I am employed by a particular NHS trust but my wages are capped by the Government. So just like a rugby player I am free to move from one club (Trust) to another but I will not be able to earn more than a maximum for my particular pay scale.