why would they? Why would a club chairman spend a huge amount more money on a player other clubs just wouldnt want to spend the money on?

Chairmen arent stupid, you dont get to be rich by paying out money you dont need to. With the points system you couldnt get a team full of superstars so why would you bother paying average players more money just because there isnt a rule to say you cant?

what the points system would mean is that Leeds could have offered Lee Smith more money to stay at leeds (which is clearly a good thing, stopping us losing young talent to union) but Warrington couldnt try to buy success by offering more than Leeds (because Smith would count more on Warringtons cap than Leeds)

Its a very very paranoid mindset that would think this would result in huge amounts more money going to players, because it wouldnt

the Wendyball 'premiership' is at least as competitive, if not more so than Super League

The problem with the point's system, in the UK at least, is that virtually no club in SL are making a profit. The cap itself was more away to stop the lower clubs spending themselves out of business rather than to level out the field. If you remove the financial restriction you may cause the game more harm than good.

should clubs who cant be trusted not to spend more than they have, have a place in a franchised super league? especially when they dont need to over spend to put out a competitive squad as the point system would mean clubs couldnt hoard players and there would always be players of sufficient quality that couldnt find a place elsewhere

Erm, where have you been the last 115 years or so? Loads of clubs have gone to the wall spending money they didn't have on players that weren't worth it.

if only it were so simple and we could be so naive, it would be easy

This system would not work in SL or for NZ.
NZ Warriors, Catalans and Crusaders would have a squad made up of rep players as any French or Welsh players make the national squad and more NZ Warriors would be involved in their national side than you would expect from other NRL sides.
Possibly a reverse points system for Rep players of developing countries, or Expansion countries having a discount on their rep players.

though this would be countered by the fact that these players these clubs brought through to international representation would be discounted as developed players


i would think this was a good idea anyway

As Roofaldo said the Salary Cap was put into place to save clubs from themselves to prevent them spending more than they could to compete and going to the wall. It's just that since then the RFL and SKY have chosen to focus on the secondary effect (a by-product in reality) of evening the competition so most people have forgotten the real reason that the SC exists.

While the points system would mean clubs couldn't hoard the top players it does not mean that the other clubs could afford to take those discarded players. For sake of example :- Harlequins and Salford make enquiries about a (non-rep) centre at Leeds but on finding out his salary demands cannot afford him due to their finances (no cap limit added to Leeds much larger turnover means they can price out most other clubs by paying larger average salaries without risking meltdown). Said centre gains international caps and as a result Leeds cannot keep him due to the points increase. He has to go, Quins and Salford have the points to spare but know that they cannot afford his salary (and will face financial ruin if they buy him) so he ends up going to Warrington who can afford his wage and they offload two fringe players to get under the points. The fringe players end up at Quins and Salford. Top player still goes to a bigger club and the poorer clubs feed off the scraps.

You cannot expect any player to take a pay cut simply because the clubs that can afford his points cannot meet his current wage. To attempt to compete and without the restraints of a cash cap clubs like Salford and Quins would be forced to spend more than they could afford and risk folding. Players like the centre in my example would be more likely to end up going to RU as the only RL clubs that were rich enough to pay their salary would not be able to employ them due to the points system. Such players would then have only two options take a (pretty much enforced) pay cut or cross codes and get their current wage.

yet the SC has no relevance to how much a club can afford to pay, it is much higher than some, much lower than others.

this example would happen the same under an a salary cap. If Leeds cannot afford him under the cap, and Salford/quins cannot afford him anyway yet Warrington can he will go to warrington, whether you use a points system or a salary cap.

besides, the limit on points would also have the affect of limiting wages, not through an arbitrary number of a total wage bill, but through the market affects of supply and demand. If Leeds have 2 rep centres, whether the 3rd rep centre wants £100k or £1M Leeds cant keep him as his value to the squad is less about his wage demands and more about the players elsewhere in the squad they would need to let go to accomodate a rep centre in reserve

you can expect that because thats what would have to happen. A players value is only their value on the open market, if a club isnt willing to pay them £100k then they will have to accept less whether you have a points system or a hard cap

A points system would limit the wage escalation between RL clubs because the price is limited by the points but it would allow them to compete with RU, and even offer an alternative to RU for RU players.

in your example, player A plays for Leeds as a junior and progresses to a first team player and then to international level. Under this proposal he would be worth 4 points on the points cap as a developed player to Leeds and 6 to everyone else.

This would mean when negotiating his next contract, Leeds can afford to keep him under the points cap (regardless of wage) but Warrington would likely need to release either 1 developed rep player, or 2 experienced non rep players to fit player A under their cap. This has the affect of not only reducing his value to Warrington but also reducing the amount of players on which Warrington could afford to pay under the cap. So any extra they pay to Player A is offset by the fact they would need to release players B and C (though maybe not fully) this would limit the escalation in wages for player A.

This would also limit the amount of rep players at one club which would ensure an even spread of talent as it would limit which clubs could be in for which players meaning clubs like Quins and Salford would be more likely to pick up a star as there would be more who couldnt get a gig at each club, its simple supply and demand

That's true, but these teams might still be disadvantaged. Say Catalans bring a player through to represent France at an early age and then for one reason or another the player is no longer needed (or wanted), perhaps a new coach and new systems or loss of form etc. Would that player be more difficult for Catalans to move on because he would be more expensive to other clubs? Might they be stuck with him?

My point was that changing from a cash salary cap to a points quota system would not alleviate the problems that we have with differences in squad standards due to vast differences in income for different clubs. The cash ceiling as it currently stands fixes the average salary at £60k - £65K. Removing the cash ceiling would allow previously restricted salaries to climb above that. You only have to look at RL pre SC to see that clubs with larger turnovers will offer players more cash to price out competitors and that the smaller clubs will overspend to get players to keep up and will ultimately fail and go to the wall. Most of the SL clubs cannot pay full cap.

You are fooling yourself if you think that with only so many points to use and no rule to restrict squad salary that bigger clubs will say to their players "we can keep you here but your wage is limited to a certain amount" due to the points quota and that players will meekly accept. The principal deciding factor in player wages is what the player's agent can get any club in either code (or even AFL) to pay him. Agents will play off one club against another as they do in sports with no SC like soccer and as they still do in RL with the SC. The pay cut hits the agent as well as the player so he will steer his client into RU with the guarantee of the same salary if needing to.

The next Keith Senior or Martin Gleeson wil still require a similar level of salary to those two. A player getting representative honours will still demand a higher wage than one who hasn't played representative RL. Regardless of the number of points they have on their quota a club like Quins or Salford is still unlikely to be able to pay more than one top level player (if they can even afford to do that) without facing going out of business. There is also still going to be the type of Richie Myler situation, he was getting Rep honours at Salford but still couldn't wait to get away and join a bigger club with more hope of silverware. This despite Salford offering in their words to make him the best paid player ever at Salford. He still wanted to play for a bigger club over one of the smaller ones and other players will feel the same. You cannot force players to join any club against their wishes

Changing to a points quota will not solve any problems we have now, they will still exist. The only way the squad strengths will balance is by every club growing their businesses to a point where all are able to pay the same total salary (full cap ideally). Then a player will be able to go to any club and get the same wage and all clubs will have an equal chance of competing for honours by being able to pay players of the same standard as the other clubs throughout their squad.

Bringing in a salary cap floor at a low level initially and requiring all SL clubs to be able to prove they can pay that minimum amount to get a licence would be a way to work towards a truly even playing field. The floor could then be raised over a sequence of licence cycles. This would drive all clubs to grow their businesses and increase turnover to get in and would have more chance of eventually evening all 14 clubs than any points quota would.

Nop. Sorry, I've read this four times and still don't see the logic.

Quite simply, some clubs in SL cannot afford to pay as much in salaries for their squad as others. Salford for example do not have the resources of Leeds. Not all clubs can afford to spend full cap and so do not.

Changing to a points system rather than a salary cap to constrain club squads may mean that one big club will have to release a player to fit into the points quota (as they have to with the SC anyway). It does not however alter the fact that the smaller clubs cannot afford to pay these players so the top players will still gravitate towards bigger clubs with bigger turnover.

For the length of his contract probably, which isnt really any different to now.

In fact if they were able to negotiate a settlement with him it would actually put them in a better position, for instance, Player A has 2 years to run on his contract, they could offer to pay him 18 months of his contract off to leave, this is something they couldnt do in an SC world as it would count massively against one years cap

it doesnt need to. If Warrington want to go out and pay £1m a season to all 25 players on their books it doesnt matter, they will still have to create a squad of 25 players that dont break the points ceilling and would simply be massively overpaying some very average players, this wont make a club spending a reasonable amount any less competitive.

the issue isnt how much they are paying but the make up of their squad. The can only fit 6-10 top quality players under the ceiling cap, and the more of the 'top' players they have the lower the quality of the other players they would need to make up their squad, whether they pay them a million or a tenner they would still need to fall under the points value
no, im not. Im saying that it doesnt matter. If a club wants to keep a player, the wage demands are secondary to their points value. A club can negotiate with a player their wage however they like but if they cant fit them under the points cap they cant offer them anything. And they cant play one team off against another because only a few teams in each case would be able to offer each player a contract. All clubs would be forced to have a similar make up of squad, 6-10 top quality players (between 36 and 60 points) between 5 and 10 2nd tier players (between 20 and 40 points) and around 10 3rd tier players (about 20 points) how a club decides to do that is up to them but it limits the amount of players of quality each club can employ. Which limits the demand for tier 1 and 2 players, which limits their value stopping wages massively escalating

yes they will. they will want more money, the same as they do under the salary cap. However Richie Myler as a non-developed international player probably wouldnt get a gig at Warrington because likely couldnt fit him under the points cap. This would mean Salford werent in competition for Myler, very few of the big clubs would be, meaning Salford et al could offer him a lower wage, and he would be left with a choice to accept it or retire. If union came in for him, then Salford could either choose to increase his wage to compete or let him go, which is a better situation than now where they couldnt compete.
nonsense, there will always be big clubs and little clubs, it is naive to think otherwise. What you really mean is that when the SC is at the level of the lowest common denominator the top quality players will move around on 3 year contracts taking their success with them, as has happened in Australia. We will also lose a lot of the top players to other sports. A points quota evens the playing talent in EXACTLY the same way as an SC, it just allows clubs to pay players what they are worth, attract better players and compete with union if they so wish (no one is going to force them to do so)
no, it wont, you have already contradicted yourself by
using the example of Myler accepting less at Warrington, the same as Ellis did at Leeds, which shows that the big clubs will be able to attract the the better players on lower wages, a hard salary cap only entrenches that position

and you are still missing the point that the bigger clubs can only fit so many players under the points cap, they can only fit so many players of a certain quality under the points cap so all the players cannot possibly gravitate towards the bigger clubs because the bigger clubs cannot employ them whether the players are asking for £10 or £10m

I understand that a points quota would mean that a club could only have a certain number of players of a certain quality in their squad. I read the article and understand mathematics. I also understand that a club that can only afford to pay a lot less on their squad (because their income is a lot smaller) will not be able to pick up a lot of the players that the richer clubs are forced to release without going bust in the process.

The players that are in this situation have only a 12 to 15 year career and will want to maintain their wage level. Those with demands beyond the spending capacity of the clubs that can fit them into the points quota will go to RU to get that wage so the weaker clubs won't necessarily strengthen from the system changing. You could end up with the competition as a whole being weakened (just as with a salary cap).

Neither system is ideal and neither is likely to produce the desired outcome. The title of the thread posed the question "a better way?" I just don't happen to think it is any better at doing what it sets out to do than the current system.

But they cant do this anyway. If a club cant offer a player attractive enough wages because they simply cant afford them then they simply cant afford them, whatever cap system we use. And union isnt going to become suddenly more attractive to Player A at club A because Player B at Club B is paid more than him. Paying Danny Mcguire more doesnt make union more attractive to Stefan Ratchford, in fact it becomes less attractive as IF SALFORD WISH they can offer Ratchford terms to compete with union something that they cannot do now.

Im still curious as to how your logic has reached this point, i simply dont understand where you are coming from. I cant see how raising wages for some players will mean other players choose to go to union who wont now be offering more than they were previously because of this

I don't know where you got the idea about McGuire getting a pay rise at Leeds causing Ratchford to leave Salford. What I was saying that if Leeds are forced to release player A due to points quota and Salford (or any other club with enough points to spare) cannot afford to pay the wage that player A wants (he is unlikely to accept a pay cut to go to a weaker club) then player A is more likely to go to RU to get his current wage level. Nothing like what you seem to think I meant.

To clarify a point I don't think you understand SALFORD CANNOT AFFORD TO PAY FULL CAP SO DO NOT PAY FULL CAP. Changing the system from a squad salary cap to a points quota WILL NOT GIVE THEM THE MONEY THEY DO NOT POSSESS they will still not be able to pay for players they cannot afford now. THEY CANNOT AFFORD THEM BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY, NOT BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE THE CAP SPACE. That is the reason they have been trying to move to a new stadium since well before they were warned about it affecting their licence. They hope that it will increase revenue to give them enough income to be able to have the same spending power as Leeds, Wigan et al so that they then will be able to afford the better players. Salford are not alone in this situation.

Implementing a points quota system in place of the Salary Cap with comparative club finances as they are now would have very little, if any effect on the balance of power and the spread of the best players. With a much smaller budget the likes of Salford (apologies to any City Reds fans, I do not mean to single out your club in particular) cannot afford to assemble a squad with the same strength as Leeds, Wigan, Saints. They may have the available points but it doesn't mean that they can use them any more than they can spend the full cap.

Your argument in most parts contradicts itself and in others is completely irrelevant, ill try and address them in bullet points so hopefully you can either follow the logic through or show where your logic deviates

If Salford cannot afford to pay player A then they cannot afford to pay player A. It doesnt matter what cap we use, even if we have a cap that they can afford to spend the full amount, unless they can make an offer acceptable to the player he wont play for them.

We are [umore[/u likely to lose players to union with a monetary cap because we are limited massively in what we can offer a player. Under a points system a club could choose, if they wished, to offer a contract to a player which would compete or even beat an offer from union. This means we would be [uless[/u likely to lose a player to union

A points system [uwould[/u spread the talent between the clubs more, as clubs wouldnt be able to have as many players of a certain quality on their books at anyone time, this would mean some players of quality would need to go to lesser clubs as they wouldnt have an opportunity at top clubs. This would keep the wages down as well as clubs are very limited in what clubs they can sign for.

You're argument against the above is that players are simply going to refuse to play for a lower team, this however contradicts your argument of needing a cap all clubs can spend. it also contradicts what we are seeing right now. Clubs are able to pay players now and the same players would still play for the same wages, with the points system meaning more quality players would be available affecting the price each player can demand.

yes we do need to grow game wide revenues but this is completely irrelevant to how we cap clubs hoarding players. Especially as we know players will accept less (meaning lower clubs need to pay more) to play for bigger clubs

It's pretty simple really, I don't understand why you can't see what he's getting at.

If we use someone like Robinson when he was at Wigan, or Calderwood when at Leeds. Neither club thought they were worth retaining for the money they were wanting, so both left the clubs they were at and joined 'lesser' clubs, probably on slightly less money than they were on previously, but because the cap restricted their wage at their original club it wasn't a massive drop.

Without a monetary cap, both players wages could have been much higher at the point their clubs decided they didn't want them. Huddersfield still couldn't have paid much more than they did in the original example, so the drop in wages is now a big one. Do those players still sign for Huddersfield or Hull if the wage drop is massive or do they look elsewhere? Do Huddersfield break the bank attempting to keep up with the wage inflation that [iwould[/i happen (for any doubt whether clubs would pay average players more money if it were available, where did all the SL money go? Certainly not into club development)?

The monetary cap means that wage differences are never that big, even if smaller clubs can't pay as much as bigger clubs, a points system with no monetary cap would destroy that.

this would only be the case if you were naive enough to believe clubs would suddenly start wasting money for no apparent reason.

the reason why clubs spend huge amounts of money previously is that they were in competition with each other for everyone of these player, and they believed paying more would attract a better quality squad. This simply cannot be the case under a points system.

Wages arent going to escalate massively, and where they do, it will only be for the very best, which is no bad thing.

In the case of Calderwood, Leeds did offer him a contract, Wigan offered more, im not sure why you think Leeds not being able to offer Calderwood a contract would mean the clubs in competition for him would need to pay more for him. Neither am i sure why you think a union contract of say £100k becomes more attractive than a league contract of £120k because the player previously had a league contract of £300k.

This system would have no influence on how attractive a player is to union and how much they are willing to offer him. If they are willing to offer him a contract higher than a league club is willing to pay then he will likely go to union, but having a points system doesnt suddenly mean a union club will offer more, unless of course you are thinking that a player will take a pay cut (from league to union) in a strange nose-cutting, face-spitting action because Quins arent able to offer him as much as Leeds. If not, then the clubs are in a position of more strength able to negotiate harder with players

It doesnt matter if the wage disparity is huge, a club cant be more successful simply by paying more money to players

And you call him naive

it cant, if we set the points total at the right level then it is impossible to build a better squad simply by paying more money to players.

you cannot put out a 17 man squad of internationals as it would take you over the total when building your squad of 25. as a very maximum (ignoring dispensations for developed international players) you could only attract 12 international players (72 points) and 12 the other 13 players in the squad would then need to be players you had developed with less than three years first team experience (24 points) and one player with more than 3 years experience, i doubt any team would be trembling at the prospect of at least 3 rookies in the squad every single week

Yes, because history has told us they never, ever do.



So you think that under a points system clubs aren't in competition with each other for players and paying more than other clubs wouldn't attract a better squad?



If one club increases wages, they all have to. To think otherwise is incredibly naive.



I'm not sure where I posted those figures. Can you point it out to me? Otherwise, you might be better off reading what I have actually written.



This system is a waste of time and would improve nothing.



Is that why Melbourne Storm failed to win so many trophies? And Wigan in their heyday? Oh, they did win more than other clubs by paying players more. More money means attracting better players, to even attempt to deny that isn't naive, it's laughable.