It's part of the reason for their success, but one that is massively overstated IMO. Their ability to invest in [uall aspects[/u of the club/team is why they have dominated. The focus on 'doing things the right way' is a perfectly natural image for the club to want to project, but it's only part of the picture.

The thing about Wire's quick fix is that it worked (eventually

) - despite the lack (relative to the other successful clubs) of academy graduates, they won three Challenge Cups and went to two GFs.

The more obvious, if less romantic, correlation is not between on-field success and investment in youth but on-field success and finance. Stretching the cap by exploiting loopholes is probably at least as important as the academy production line.

But the problem is the thought of clubs running their affairs their own way. We tried that and it very nearly killed the sport.
Without a method of limiting what a club can spend on players do we really think clubs will spend money on academies and player development? Without some method of limiting the number of overseas players at a club do we really think clubs will play more British players?

It takes a lot of rules and regulations to run a sport. We have to protect players, especially young players, who may be exploited for instance. So that requires rules and regulations regarding what age they can be signed and in what manner and when they can be played in certain age groups etc.

I agree the RFL appear weak, but the solution, in my opinion, is for the RFL to grow a pair. Ensure they are properly funded and resourced so we can appoint professionals to the relevant roles and enough support staff to assist them.

True. And I'm pretty confident there will be different answers from different clubs too.

I appreciate that having a strong youth setup is an essential path to a successful club, however, I was under the impression this thread related to S.C. misdemeanours.

I was purely speculating that if some clubs are paying above & beyond the agreed thresholds they can employ the cream of the sport which could perpetuate their success.

Oh & thanks for the reference regarding my club & youth systems, people in glass houses & all that.

If this story does have legs, I’m pretty certain my “Whipping Boy” club won’t be in the vanguard.

Absolutely - and I'm not advocating [icomplete[/i anarchy. Just sticking to workable, enforceable rules - and yeah, a bit more freedom for clubs to innovate and/or adapt to their own particular circumstances. The one-size-fits-all 'solutions' of licensing were broadly sensible in principle, but too prescriptive and unrealistic.

Somewhere in between there's a balance to be found.

I personally don't think clubs should spend money on player development - unless they view it as being in their own self-interest. The RFL should run the academy system IMO - with money 'taken' from the SL clubs' TV cash. If you're forcing organizations to do things 'for the greater good' they'll generally do a half-assed job, focusing instead on stuff that helps them more directly. My fear is that RFL academies would be staffed by ex-pros who'd fallen on hard times rather the best and brightest coaches, but that's more of a cultural problem.

As for more British players, for sentimental reasons I'd like to see a decent number of fed-trained players in SL, but I'm dubious about how much protectionism can help in developing quality players. It's always seemed a demand side solution to a supply side problem, to me.

Lot of inverted commas in my post - yuk.

What exactly is the SC supposed to achieve, more teams winning trophies and less clubs going bankrupt was key objectives (I think).

Both have completely failed IMO.

SC drives less investment in the game which ultimately leads to star players leaving the SL. Get rid of it and let investors invest...

Agreed. Everybody knows that we need more money coming into the game. This self imposed policy restricts the amount of money coming in. How stupid can you get?

Just scrap the cap. Get relegated if you go bust (and lose the Sky money associated with the higher division). Let investors invest what they want in the knowledge of the potential risks.

The thing is. That isn't much of a disincentive to investors. Once they are bust they are no longer at the club. Why would they give a fig if it's then relegated or loses sky money? The people to lose out there would be fans and companies who don't get paid because they sky money doesn't come in.

You can argue either way. If 'investors' want a return on their investment, they'd be better served by running the business of the club in such a way as to not go bust, staying in the higher division and getting a return on investment over time via the higher Sky money and associated higher revenues.

I'd rather risk scrapping the cap (along with introducing related penalties for insolvency) than risk sticking with what we have.

If there was no salary cap, can you seriously see Mr Hetherington sending Leeds (and Caddick?) bust by spending way more than they can afford?

but this is true whether or not there are punishments for going bust.

no but again, that is because leeds are a well run business that makes money, has assets, and can continue to do so. I honestly dont think that a penalty for going bust would make the slightest difference.

All owners want their clubs to be a leeds, none of them want them to be a wakefield or bradford. All those at a less financially secure club are trying to make them a financially secure club not to avoid a penalty but because it is good for them to do so.

I would agree that we can't stick with what we apparently have, a paper tiger SC is the worst of both worlds. It has all the negatives of an SC with none of the positives.

i largely agree with this, but would point the problem you mention with licensing was weakness from the RFL. Licensing should have simply provided an environment for clubs to reach the levels they needed but vested interests demanded that these objective criteria were put in place when then created an unnecessary prescriptive environment, where things like 'suitable facilities' became X number of seats, x number undercover etc etc and the time frames put on it left some clubs unstable and focussed on meeting these checkpoints instead of using their stability to create the best business they could be. That was a failure of strength from the RFL


These however i dont think were examples of weaknesses. Both Leeds and Wigan in your examples had relatively strong arguments against what happened. The loans at Leeds were absolutely fine, the issue was the players training at Leeds facilities. Which is a silly thing to be an issue. With Wigan they found a loophole that not only left their actual guilty charge looking a bit unsafe, but it left their penalty unenforceable. I dont think either are examples of where we need more or less regulation, but very good example of where we need better legislation.

I don't think it's ok to rip stupid people off. I don't think they have been ripped off. I think they're morons and more than likely don't really understand the situation/are chancing their arm. For example of the former, we had one player (according to Koukash) who claimed the Club were unfairly docking his pay. In reality they were Child Support payments.

Re: salary cap. The biggest problem with the it is that it tends to cause the quality of the top teams to stagnate rather than raise the standard of the lower teams. We need to focus on ideas to raise the standard of the bottom clubs if we're going to impose a salary cap on the bigger clubs. As ever, the NRL does this better than SL.

2 Leagues of 10
SC's of 2.5 & 1.5 million respectively.
Clear pathway up & down 1 auto promotion.
Reserve sides 2 leagues of 10 & play curtain raiser before each weekly round.

My understanding of the Leeds 'loans', is that the players involved had actually transferred to Fev and Hunslet, and officially were nothing to do with Leeds. If they were just on loan, then actually I reverse my position and think £2k is a tad harsh - though iirc it is technically against the rules, I reckon a lot of similar things go on.

I agree that the RFL isn't strong, but I don't think it is in the sense of lacking character. They just don't have very much power. They don't seem to realise it though and are forever overreaching. People expect too much of them, but they raise those expectations with bold plans and endless tinkering.

Quote ="Mild Rover"My understanding of the Leeds 'loans', is that the players involved had actually transferred to Fev and Hunslet, and officially were nothing to do with Leeds. If they were just on loan, then actually I reverse my position and think £2k is a tad harsh - though iirc it is technically against the rules, I reckon a lot of similar things go on. I agree that the RFL isn't strong, but I don't think it is in the sense of lacking character. They just don't have very much power. They don't seem to realise it though and are forever overreaching. People expect too much of them, but they raise those expectations with bold plans and endless tinkering.'" www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... ned-by-rfl No you are correct. The players were transferred to Fev and Hunslet on one year deals and yet still regularly trained with and had medical assistance from the Leeds club despite, allegedly, having no 'official' affiliation with the club at that time. Was fairly obvious what was going on so I think a £2000 fine was perfectly fine, even lenient.

Quote ="Mild Rover"My understanding of the Leeds 'loans', is that the players involved had actually transferred to Fev and Hunslet, and officially were nothing to do with Leeds. If they were just on loan, then actually I reverse my position and think £2k is a tad harsh - though iirc it is technically against the rules, I reckon a lot of similar things go on. I agree that the RFL isn't strong, but I don't think it is in the sense of lacking character. They just don't have very much power. They don't seem to realise it though and are forever overreaching. People expect too much of them, but they raise those expectations with bold plans and endless tinkering.'" www.skysports.com/rugby-league/n ... ned-by-rfl No you are correct. The players were transferred to Fev and Hunslet on one year deals and yet still regularly trained with and had medical assistance from the Leeds club despite, allegedly, having no 'official' affiliation with the club at that time. Was fairly obvious what was going on so I think a £2000 fine was perfectly fine, even lenient.

So what was the "big story"? Or have I missed it buried within these 9 pages?

Regards

King James

they werent on loan, they did transfer with an agreement that if leeds wanted them back they could have them. None of that is illegal (and there isnt much benefit to doing it that way) The only issue was with them training at leeds facilities. Which is a pretty pointless thing to have a problem with. Its all a nonsense

I disagree completely. The one thing Nigel Wood has achieved well in his time, is somehow convincing people he isnt responsible for whats going on. The RFL do have power and they are the games leaders. They have to be able to lead. They are unfortunately, far too easily led.

There is very little strength from the RFL because they dont really have a vision. They dont know what RL is, what it can be, or even what they want it to be.

Its become somewhat de rigueur to portray the RFL as some powerless bunch of mandarins charged with some sisyphean task but that just isnt true. Nigel Woods job is no different to any other CEO in the world. He has to come up with a vision, execute it, and convince everyone else to come along with him. Something he is failing to do hugely. We can pay pay someone 30k a year and have them be an administrator telling the referees where to go and putting the fixtures together. We dont need a CEO if they cannot lead. We definitely dont need one who can't even ensure the rules are joined up, make sense and can actually be enforced.

it isn't a burning at the stake offence from Leeds, but if that is the punishment (half suspended, I've just seen), why even have the rule? Leeds would be happy to pay that every year to expand their farm system, I'm sure. And that's my point about over-regulation and under enforcement. They put rules in place and when they're broken do next to nothing. So nobody takes it very seriously and we get cynical.

One of my pet theories is that some clubs carousel registrations of fed-trained players to minimise their live cap liability. I don't know whether they really do, but one objection was that de-registered players wouldn't be able to train with the rest of the squad, because of this same rule. My response was basically that it is only a RFL rule and everybody knows they're often not enforced - and tbh, that's quite sad, that I honestly see many of the RFL rules as barely relevant to discussion of real world RL practice.

And the danger is that you get cheat inflation - if they get away with that, why shouldn't we do this? The line should be clearly defined.

On the RFL, you want leadership and they seem keen to deliver it. But IMO they're only empowered to administer and mediate. They're the piper, but (in different ways) it is the club chairmen and Sky who pay to call the tune. Not all CEO roles are created equal.

Let clubs spend half their income on wages. The more they make the more they can spend

If a rich owner wants to pump his own money into a club then he can only use half of the total income. No money from any source that can be traced back to the owner can be used or 'donations' from friends or family

Raise the cap to £2.5m and keep the marquee player allowance. If an owner wants to speculate and invest new money in his/her team then it should be a donation in the name of the individual(s) and not in the form of a loan liability to the club. Put an end to these widespread directors loans that just end up the long grass and discourage new investors wanting to buy a club and taking on the historical debts. Penalise all clubs with directors loans by reducing their cap allowance by £X for every £100K of loans. If an owner(s) then wants to spend more against the cap they will have to write-off some or all of their loans to the club. We have to find a better solution for protecting the future financial risks to clubs and to encourage more new benefactors into the sport.

Seriously who in the right mind would want to takeover a rugby league club with historical debts, little or no assets, and are non-profitable? This is before you’ve even thought about investing more finances improving the team with no guarantee of increasing income.

That’s an interesting stat. I hadn’t realised that. I guess there are similarities but with Leeds they have built success mainly on developing their own players and never spent as much as Wigan were. Leeds didn’t plunder other clubs of their players as much as Wigan did.

At least under the cap clubs can’t just go out and pay big wages to attract the best – they are forced to develop their own.

I suspect though that the well off clubs will be most successful regardless of whether there’s a cap or not.

Leeds appear to be a very well run club that have always had a good fanbase and the appeal of attracting top quality kids. Very similar to Saints and Wigan, all three have been consistently streets ahead of the rest over the decades.

Are you saying Koukash isnt in his right mind?



Director loans, when handled properly, can be a powerful tool, and can create benefits for both the clubs and the owners. The problem is recognising when a directors loan is a good one, or one just to lumber the club long term (something most Saints fans know). Without directors loans Langtree Park would never have been built.

I'm not against a salary cap rise, in real terms the cap has shrunk 500k in 10 years, but I think there would be more effective methods right now, as all such a big jump will do is mean the same players can demand more.

All three are very active in the schools and junior clubs as well. Something other teams need to take on board.

Yeah that was Marwans version of events via Twitter, not that hes ever got anything wrong before...

For what its worth, MK isnt numb and runs several successful businesses. Therefore when he fell out with TP and it was heading for a tribunal ask yourself how did he ever think the RFL and the RL world would never find out about his additional consultancy work? Just a thought maybe he new it would get found, then ask yourself why would he want people to find out because surely there would be some punishment for little old Salford?

Then finally just maybe other organisations do a similar consultancy arrangements with certain players and MK knows this and will expose it if the RFL fine his club. Alternatively of course the lot gets swept under the carpet and MK gets what he always wanted... no more salary cap, which as discussed previously i think would be great for the game!!

All the above totally made up and a complete guess.....