The following is an extract from a report in today's Daily Telegraph.

"Clubs have rejected a proposal by Salford owner Marwan Koukash to introduce a marquee player rule in Super League.
Only Wigan, Warrington, Leeds and Widnes, along with the Red Devils, supported Koukash’s idea of making a high-profile signing exempt from the Super League salary cap at a meeting at Hull’s KC Stadium.
Koukash wanted to introduce the marquee player in an attempt to reverse the growing trend of players leaving Super League for rugby union and the NRL in Australia."

What do you make of that. Seems to me only the big and ambitious clubs (I class Widnes as ambitious) voted for it. The rest would rather let us roll over without a fight.

SL clubs in "acting in their own interests rather than that of the sport" shocker!

And keeping Super League at a crap, semi-amateur level isn't in your club's interest?

Do you guys get trained to trot out this cliched twaddle, which can instantly be shot down, or are you all born with the ability?

who would people like to see us sign if the rule was agreed

id personally like to see us (try to) sign Graham

I think this will create a large rift now from clubs within Superleague.

Hudds, Hull, and Saints aren't big clubs?

That press release is Bullshi* IMO and is a blatant attempt to justify there own laziness as a board or club in developing other income streams off there own backs and also engaging with the community clubs and using a lot of volunteers.

Sorry its utter crap and is more an admission that they have sat back and languished in mediocrity for 20 years + of SL.

I would compare this to giving a tramp money on the basis he gets himself fixed up with digs etc and you damn well know he will use it to survive

I find their position on this bewildering, personally.

They're worried that the top clubs will pull away, or so when we're Wakefield, Castleford, Hull KR, London, last in a semi final in a playoff?
When was the last time they were in a final at all.

Keep the salary cap for another 20 years and I still guarantee non of those side will be near a semi final in the playoffs in that whole time.

This is shocking and explains why the cap is designed to suppress ambition whilst pandering to the small clubs, and I support a small club
To then see saints hull and Hudds voting against is unbelievable

Each club seems to be pushing for their best interest and not the best interest of the league.

If you have cash you're all for it, as you want the better players to strengthen your team and be a draw.

If you don't have the cash you'll be against it, don't want the teams who are better off strengthening when they can't.

Simple really.

Personally I'm saddened by this, English RL is going to pot this was an idea to bring something to the game, and it was rejected.

When I made the original posting my reference to "big clubs" was made tongue in cheek inviting a response from a certain regular contributor to this forum from a town nearby. So far he hasn't responded so I take it that he agrees with my inferred description of his club.

I find your response to my posting somewhat puzzling. Is your outburst aimed at the Daily Telegraph or the clubs who failed to back the proposal?.

. <----- the point






<---- you

I'm all for the plan and think it would be great for the game as a whole, but it is more of a benefit to the big clubs, which is why the cellar dwellers have not backed it.

So we do nothing, allow the games best players to go elsewhere, and we all end up as "Cellar dwellers" ?

This proposal is a stupid idea. It is open to all sorts of skullduggery. We haven't seen the fine print. It is obvious that Koucash wants a way around the cap per se. It may be that Saints feel his proposal is unworkable.

It is part of what needs to be a bigger debate. Do we keep the cap or not?

Personally I think we should keep the cap - just raise it. Having ambition is all very well, but it needs to be sensible. The raising of the caps in RU and the NRL plus the effects of the recession have brought us to this position. I suspect that any "marquee" signing would see us all buying a lot of over-the-hill Aussies looking for a last pay cheque (no names!!).

Anyway after last night I should think Dr Koucash will have a bit more on his mind - like how to get the 'has beens' that he's already bought playing for each other.

That is in effect what they have just told us.

They all have long histories and are big names based on that but in the modern era they obviously can't afford [ior even worse[/i [udon't want[/u to pay more then the salary cap allows. Being a big name clubs or not, this is just more evidence of the total lack of ambition exhibited by certain SL clubs.

Like I've said before, Hull give the impression if being a big club, they have a lot of fans that's for sure but they're in a council stadium so I imagine they don't generate the profits through that.

Hull are like the neighbours that buy everything on tic, but give the impression they're loaded.

Just what is the point in paying for salaries that you can't afford?

How many Super League clubs do you think run at a profit? Leave aside those like Warrington who have Moran and Salford who have Koucash - if they walked away those clubs would drown in debt.

Bradford's business plan in the middle of the last decade was predicated on getting bigger and bigger crowds, but the crowds just plateaued. If a club isn't able to bring in money to pay for higher salaries then you have financial disaster.

So if we just let the ones who can afford it pay unlimited salaries we get to the point where we have a league with only 2 or 3 particicpants. Actually I get the impression that there are lots on here who would be quite happy with that scenario.

You're wrong about Wire drowning in debt, we make a profit without Moran.

The Aussies have a marquee player option with a defined amount of salary or portion of it exempt from the cap. I think it is AUD $550K.

It is no more open to skulduggery than any other regulation.



It is no use saying we should raise the cap or do this or that because that horse has bolted with the Sky deal.

We aren't dealing in theories here or what [iwe[/i would like to see but an actual proposal that was on the table that could have changed the ability of clubs to pay to players wages.

As to over the hill Aussies well there would be absolutely nothing to stop the RFL making it a rule that they had to meet the UK trained player criteria for example. That may not be what Koukash was proposing as I guess he wanted to be able to sign the likes of SBW but like anything a bit of sensible negotiation can take you some way towards what you want rather then leaving you stuck where you were if as has happened the proposal is rjected outright.

At the end of the day this was the first concrete proposal for ages on the table to address the player drain and to allow SL clubs to try and compete for players signatures and it has been thrown out which I think is a mistake.

You seem to have a bit of an issue with Koukash but is that a reason to dismiss his proposal so readily?

BTW, you are probably going to see an influx of over-the-hill Aussies anyway because IIRC part of the restructure involves increasing the overseas quota. Clearly a move to address the obvious fact that given we have not got enough quality players for a 14 team SL league we certainly have not got the numbers available to increase the competitiveness of the lesser teams in a 24 team cmpetition. Add in the proposal to limit the number of Academies to 10 and you can see where this is going.

Who said anything about paying salaries you can't afford?

It stands to reason if you aint got the cash you can't afford the player. I thought it was implicit and didn't actually need spelling out clubs would need to raise the revenue to do this.

If they can't and do it anyway well they will get into financial trouble and possible end up like Bradford. Why we fear this I am not sure because at least it exposes those running such clubs as incompetent. We need to get these people out of the game.

What we do now is actually protect the bunch of lightweights who run many clubs. We set a cap level low enough so they don't have to lift a finger to improve their clubs finances.

If when the new deal comes arrives in 2016 the cap is not raised the Sky money will pay the entire £1.825m salary cap.

That is great if you have the marketing skills of a chimp but no good for the sport. A totally head in the sand approach.



None of this follows. You are jumping from one conclusion to the next.

Don't you think it is about time clubs did some work to raise their incomes so plans such as that proposed by Koukash are feasible?

Although we face a player drian issue now they could bring it in with the new structure in 2016. That would give clubs time to seek sponsorship or other ways to finance their marquee player. If they fail to secure the finance by then well that would their own fault.

This is it in a nutshell.... Time for clubs to up their game, not drag others down to their level....

You don' think that clubs haven't been trying for decades to raise more cash? Here's an idea - lets raise some cash to help buy a player? Crikey - I'll bet the "lightweights" never thought of that one!!

If you are a young player who's skills allow you to play two different sports which sport do you choose.
1 The sport that allows you to make an adequate living but puts an artificial ceiling on your earnings.
2 The sport that gives you an higher standard of living and the opportunity to earn possibly 50% more than sport 1.
If you think 1 then you can expect to see even more players joing teams in group 1 and making a name for themselves then moving to group 2.

Also as a commercial sponsor do you look at a sport that can claim we have marquee players or do you say I like the other sport even though their profile won't reflect my investment.