Robson and Jerome?

I'm not arguing about what Wigan did I'm just saying Wigan fans and fans from Warrington can't complain about what Marwan Koukash wants when Warrington have done it for years and a big part of Wigans history was based on big money signings.

I often wonder whether the salary cap would stand up to legal challenge. As others have said, anything of this nature will always have loopholes, it is like the tax avoidance v evasion debate. Koukash is doing nothing wrong by being honest about it.

An interesting research paper on the topic, restraint of trade tends to be the topic of legal arguments against the cap.
[urlhttp://eprints.jcu.edu.au/4659/1/4659_Davies_2006.pdf[/url

Thanks, have saved that on my laptop for a rainy day. Just finishing a 5,000 word essay on European Business Law, head is in too much of a pickle to read it tonight!

Perhaps our fielding of 14 players (for all of 35 seconds) is a pointer to the way in which the cap could be improved?

I propose for next season that the number of players on the park be governed by the total salary paid to those players. So you can field 13 stars or 25 under 21s or any mixture in between - its every bit as sensible as the RFL's current restructuring proposal.

Brilliant! And if a player isn't performing on the pitch, the CEO could publicly give him a pay cut on the sideline during the game and put an extra player on the pitch. We could rename it Moneyball.

The Dr has a point about the cap being too low but he won't get anywhere when dealing with the likes of Hetherington etc.
If he really want to open up the game then to do anything about the cap he may well have no choice but to contest it in court.
In conversation with various people over the years it could well be that if the SC was contested the RFL/SL would not even defend it.
To lose would cost them £ms, money they haven't got and couldn't afford to borrow. If he did I for one would wish him success.

BTW Wigan weren't the only full time club those years ago, Leeds were also full time and before Wigan. They had a larger wage bill than Wigan's and a bigger payroll.

IMO the game would be far better off if there was no such thing as a salary cap.

Correct. The only thing that we need is protection against one or more rich clubs stuffing their reserves with top class players, keeping them away from other teams and the viewing public. *That* was the 'Wigan problem', far more than the relative strength of the first choice 13. Insist on very tight squad limits for high paid players ( which has the added benefit of forcing you to develop excellent reserves) and you don't need a cap.

Yep with 90% of clubs losing money and half of them long term unsustainable financially, the removal of the salary cap is just what the game needs! Lol.

When Moran started flexing Wires financial strength Salford fans were the ones whinging. Funny how it's all ok now your man has some cash.

At the clubs with wealthier owners, I suspect that Company A pays company B significantly over the odds for goods and services received, then company B sponsors said 'star player' a significant amount of money, which is outside of the salary cap.

This is a very simple and common process that is legal and easily placed elsewhere in an accounting process to avoid it showing up in any audit that the RFL does on a club.

After all, if a club owner has several other trading organisations, what business is it of the RFL as to who they do business with and how, if the club isn't directly linked in any financial transaction?

There's all sorts of loopholes available and Dr Money bags is only saying what a lot of others are doing.

It won't do him much good to be able to spend what he likes on a team that is ejected from the competition.

Salford have no legal right to be in SL or even in any other RFL sanctioned league. You reckon the other SL clubs would stand by while he drove a coach and horses through the cap system? The other owners all know they don't have the money to compete with him and would vote Salford out.

He wouldnt need to do anything other than offer a player a contract at X amount, then withdraw that offer and explain to said player that even though they could afford to, and even though they felt said player was worth X amount, they were unable to offer it because of the Salary Cap.

The player would then bring the case and likely win.

He most likely would. But the player has no legal right to play in any given competition and neither do Salford. They would win the case and find themselves with no competition to play in.

The player does have a right not to be discriminated against because they took legal recourse.

The RFL would also need to legally justify the revocation of Salford's RFL membership which entitles them to play in RFL's competition under the rules as set down in the RFL's operational rules.

SL (europe) Ltd would also need to justify the revocation of Salfords share regardless of any vote, even if there was provision within the rules, it would be negated.

You cant realistically have an agreement between the clubs to exclude a club or player because a player exercised their legal rights.

Good on Koukash, if he wants to plough desperately needed money into RL then let him. The salary cap is a joke in its present format and is holding the game back. It serves no purpose and is only holding back the bigger clubs and the game as a whole.

You're right of course. It did nothing to stop one of those big clubs from going bust.

Could you explain how the cap is holding the bigger clubs back.

Although Saint's (who many would regard as part of the big 4) , may not be having the best of seasons, the others (Wigan, Leeds and Warrington) are going pretty well this time around.
If these clubs were to spend double, or even 10 times the amount that they do now, all that would happen, is that the gulf between the big 4 and the rest would widen.

Do you think this would have a positive effect on the game and help retain the players that are going down under ?

You may be able to save one or two but, even without the salary cap and the weight of the poorer SL clubs around your neck, English clubs cannot compete with the Aussies, due to their sponsorship deal

There's no action a player could bring because of a salary cap. It is not a restraint of that individuals trade, if at all. The article linked to is Australian and therefore has no relevance.

As for Koukash's own Comical Ali, Red League, and his defamatory comments about Warrington breaking the cap, he'd do well to provide his evidence for that or stop making himself look like a mug by repeating it.

Spot on. Not to mention the fact that then all available spending would go on players wages rather than other areas like community work, marketing and sports science.
I'd heard a little stat from one of the sports science guys at Leeds that they're now spending more on sports science/conditioning etc in 1 year than they did in the period 1996-2005.

No salary cap for me and no PG's or DL's to find it

Will removing the cap actually help anyone.
Apart from stoking up wage inflation amongst UK based players and allowing 4 or 5 SL teams to sign a couple more players, it wont do anything.
And, stoking wage inflation will have a detrimental effect on the game, therefore the net effect is a minus but, lets not upset Wigan or Leeds eh.

Hmm. The good Dr has had ample opportunity to make a statement of intent. Be it a player or other such signing.

Proof of the pudding, etc....

I'm mearly repeating what I've heard, and this is someone who worked at the Warrington wolves apparently cash in hand is the norm at that club and one off huge payments before and after the players starts and finishes his contract. Come on Ian look at the team you had in 2011, John wilkinson told supporters that Salford's 2011 team was not far off the cap and we didn't have players anywhere near the ilk off Warrington.

1 Brett Hodgson
2 Chris Riley
3 Matt King
4 Chris Bridge
5 Joel Monaghan
6 Lee Briers
7 Richard Myler
8 Adrian Morley
9 Michael Monaghan
10 Garreth Carvell
11 Louis Anderson
12 Ben Westwood
13 Ben Harrison
14 Mickey Higham
15 Jon Clarke
16 Paul Wood
17 Simon Grix
18 Michael Cooper
19 Lee Mitchell
20 Matty Blythe
21 Tyrone McCarthy
22 Rhys Williams
23 Ryan Atkins
24 Rhys Evans
26 David Solomona

I'm not having that complete squad shared the £1.8 million salary cap between them, Morley was/is on £200000 a year and same goes for Matt King and Bret Hodgson. That's 600000 on just 3 players of that squad.
And myler left Salford after refusing an apparent £120000 a year deal so he must be on more at the wolves aswel.