For the love of god do we have to go over the same ridiculous arguments over and over again?

The salary cap has to stay or there will NEVER be a winner other than Wigan, Warrington, Hull (under current owner) or Leeds.
I'd love to know how back weighted contracts, signing on fees and agent fees are salary cap loopholes.
You can't go saying that the salary cap hasn't altered the top clubs and then quote Leeds, Wigan, Wire and Saints as the top clubs. Since the Big 4 used to include Bradford and Leeds hadn't bloody won anything. So it really was a Big 3. Also Wigan dropped out of it for a few years, Bradford are out of it now and Wire have only just come into it.

To suggest Leeds & Wigan etc could just suddenly sh|t the money needed to pay the wages the likes of Tomkins & Eastmond etc are getting in Union with no salary cap is just bizarre.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=537498&tsmp=1348593543 Not recent enough?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=537498&tsmp=1348593543 Not recent enough?

I think that statement is wrong.

The same poster might say that there is no Salary Cap in Soccer and that there 'will NEVER be a winner other than' Man Utd, Man City or Chelsea.

I would still think he would be wrong to say that.

Either way, I'd say So What?

Can't speak for DG but no, of course not.

You think super league would be improved by having around 4 teams outspend the others to oblivion?

The salary cap needs to be lowered if anything, and enforced better. You'd get less blowouts.

Terrible blow out on Sunday - Man City 1 Arsenal 1 - after Man City spent 10 times more on salaries and bought all Arsenal's best players.

What sport was that?

I dont think the salary cap should be scrapped but it certainly should be ammended. There should be incentives for clubs to increase revenue streams, such as if they make a profit they can spend more on the cap, and it should be increased to keep players in the game. Clubs should also only be able to spend a % of their revenue to try and stop them spending money that they havent got.

At the very least the salary cap should have risen each year in line with inflation since it was introduced, instead of falling in real terms year on year, and this should happen every year going forward. Having a salary cap roughly where it is now was fine when it was first introduced but even if it hadnt risen by any more than inflation it would be well over £2 million today in real terms which shows just how much players earnings have fallen in real terms. This would obviously be much better for all clubs trying to retain and attract new players. It is a joke that players in the 90's were earning more than players are today, I cant think of any other sport that has gone backwards like this. If people are concerned about some clubs signing all the best players then put limits in place as to how many players at a club can earn over a set amount. Limping along with a salary cap permanently at £1.6 million isnt helping Rugby League, isnt helping to retain our best players and it isnt even creating an equal competition. People permanently seem to complain about the big 4 but tying their arms behind their backs isnt helping the game and I dont see how, for example, letting St Helens spend another £200k a year on 3 of their best players so that they stay in Rugby League or Super League, providing they can afford it of course, creates a more uneven competition. These players would play for Saints anyway and if there are limits on player numbers earning over a certain amount no one club can hog all the stars and maybe Saints would have kept the Kyle Eastmonds of this world.

Raise the salary cap to £1.8 million immediately, for clubs that make a profit let them spend £2 million. Also on top of this have a star player allowance of 200k split between a maximum of 3 players. This would not create a less even competition than what we have now and would, if anything, help make the competition stronger by keeping our best players and would aid the national team by helping to keep our bright prospects in RL.

A sport that doesn't have a Salary Cap and is the biggest sport in this country - and the in world.

Respect where you're coming from - but do you think any governing body - let alone those at the top in RL at the moment - could effectively administer that?

No, if you try to run a sport like the Soviet Economy in the 1970's, it will end in tears.

The clubs need to be left to get on with it without restriction before it's too late (subject to the rules proposed in my earlier post on this thread).

The big four may well be more than that next year.

Wigan,
Warrington,
St Helens,
Catalans,
Leeds,
Hull FC

They all will be competitive next season and on their day capable of beating each other. This is a massive improvement on three or four years ago when Leeds and Saints were far ahead of the rest.
It's hard to see where the rest will be competitive wise with those six.

Maybe:-

Hull KR
Wakefield,
Huddersfield
Bradford
Castleford
Salford
Widnes
London

With their squads it's hard to see the bottom three ending up anywhere else.
Whether it is the salary cap or the fact that so many of our SL clubs are dependent on wealthy benefactors who put limits on how much they will spend on their club determines the success.

Well then, we should follow their lead: Drop to 11 a side, make the ball round, ban handling, etc etc

Nfl biggest sporting league on the planet by some distance. Dwarfs the premier league. They have a salary cap. Cap must stay but needs a small update

Increasing the cap is a no go. Not even half the clubs can spend the full cap without running in the red as it is.

Removing the cap is a no go. As it stands, no-one could compete with Wire, Leeds, Wigan and Hull unless Sheikh gets bored at Man City and buys Salford for giggles.

Decreasing the cap may bring the top clubs back down closer to the poorer sides in the competition but I don't believe this should be the case as they should target to increase their business to compete with the top sides.

So therefore, I'm happy how it is. Whether its possible for all teams to increase their revenue to spend at or near the cap level in the next 3-5 years without running at a loss in a 14 team competition, that's another question.

Backed up by huge sponsorship deals, high ticket prices and super-rich owners. Not to mention all the people who've fallen away from going to matches over the years because of ticket prices, the drop in atmosphere/enjoyment and the increasingly detached lifestyle of players and managers who couldn't give two hoots about the supporters. Not to mention that there's only a handful of teams who can ever win anything and a hell of a lot of teams have gone to the wall after chasing the rainbow. Yeah, modern football is such a wonderful model on how to run things.

A potential wealthy financial backer will not buy an existing RL club or establish a new one unless there is no Salary Cap - so he knows he can spend enough on players to guarantee promotion to and then be successful in Super League.

What? Like Dave Whelan?
Yeah and that's kind of the point of the salary cap, so that an owner can't artificially distort the competition by simply buying the best players whilst neglecting other areas of the club. Leading to the club having to deal with huge debts. Like Leeds & Wigan did.
If a wealthy owner wants to guarantee doing well in super league he can spend the full cap, spend whatever he wants on back room staff and facilities and the rest of the club, and make good decisions regarding player and staff recruitment.

Sounds a much better bet to me than trying it the Premier League way where you can only succeed if you're one of the richest people in the world and prepared to lose billions. Even then Chelsea finished in the same position as Hull FC did in SL.

I agree, the current SC encourages teams with little revenue to spend money they can't afford 'chasing the rainbow'. It also penalises those clubs who do generate enough total revenue to afford a higher SC from attracting better players from (or losing existing ones to) RU/NRL.

Would it be too simple for the RFL to say SC for the season is capped at 50% of the previous seasons revenues (with details to be agreed eg - 'revenue' does not include obvious 'owners one offs', and debt repayment/tax commitments must be accounted for FIRST!!!). If they insist on having a cap, maybe limit total salaries at 300% of lowest club in SL.

If Wigan, Leeds, Saints, Warrington, Hull .... or any other club that can market themselves properly can generate £10m/p.a. from tickets, merchandise, sponsorship etc, why should they lose players because others can't generate £2m in revenue?

I still think any cap is a badly thought out (stupid!) way of effectively discouraging clubs from reaching their full market potential - why bother bringing cash in if you can't spend it... may as well run on borrowed money ... oh look; some clubs are!

Why people are so wedded to this version of a salary cap I have no idea, there isn’t one positive in its favour, it isn’t transparent, it isn’t simple or clear, it hasn’t made the league more competitive ( I find it quite strange that people claim Hull and Wire can now challenge because of the SC, like Simon Moran and Adam Pearson are short of money) it hasn’t stopped clubs going bust, and it has meant that no club in the league can compete for the very best players in Rugby.

I can see why people may be in favour of a cap, I cant see a single reason why someone would be in favour of this cap.

So, you should have no objection the following simple structure for the success of RL in this country:-

1. Scrap the Salary Cap with immediate effect
2. All clubs to submit audited accounts made up to 31 December each year to the RFL by the following 30 June. Failure to do this = 6 points deduction
3. One-up, one-down automatic promotion and relegation between the leagues
4. Go into Administration = 6 points deduction
5. Go bust and transfer club to a new company = relegation to the bottom division
6. Minimum of 13 of the named 17 for any match to be EU born or trained

No because most of them have nothing whatsoever to do with ensuring the comp isn't unacceptably distorted by reckless spending.

1. What right now? Mid-season? Even then no, that's batsh|t looney thinking
2. Why? They're easily available via Companies House
3. No. Does nothing to restrict reckless spending and we only have 1 full time league.
4. Yeah, we already have that.
5. Which division? We only have 1 full time league.
6. Not possible under the law. Basically you're saying though a max of 4 overseas players. Yes I'd agree with that, though would prefer a max of 3 per club.

Are you actually Nigel Wood himself? This awesome idea sounds like something he'd come up with.

How many wealthy financial backers have you spoken to?



You might guess from my sig that I'm fairly close to some recent activity around pro RL.

It shouldn't be done away with but it does need changing to a percentage of your revenue in order to protect the smaller clubs and to try and kick their marketing teams into action.

I'd agree that ideally it should be, but it then gets very tricky. For instance what percentage should it be set at? Some people on here and other boards have said in the wake of the Bradford administration that the 50% rule should never have been done away with, but that wouldn't have altered anything at Bradford, nor any other club as I would imagine every club gets more than £3.3m income (or near enough).
Also it then gets into details such as do you include the £1.4/5m each club receives from the RFL in the income figures? What about director input? Or any type of loan?

Just scrap it.

If any club wants to spend a fortune that's fine but they had better beware my other rules including:

- Go into Administration = 6 points deduction

- Go bust and transfer club to a new company = relegation to the bottom division

- One-up, one-down automatic promotion and relegation between the leagues*

* Note - we have three divisions - SL, Championship and Championship 1. There is no such thing as a 'full-time league' - any club in any division can offer any type of contract it likes e.g. full-time, part-time, match terms only etc.