If BK did want the SC to be reduced then he would have already got his wish. The SC has already been reduced in real terms very significantly indeed, by at least 30% since its inception. This is due to the disgraceful failure to link the cap to RPI or wages inflation.

So, what point the salary cap?.....

Is it helping in any aspects of the game?.... Or is it a hinderance?

Is just papering over the massive crack of a HUGE shortage of funding in SL overall? Making SL completely unsustainable as a full time, professional sport, that can compete on the world stage?

While it is true if the club folded the debts may not be completely wiped it is guaranteed they won't be paid off in full or they wouldn't need to go into administration in the first place and incur whatever penalties that involves - assuming there are any (which there should be).

The point I was making was that it isn't acceptable to go bust and then a new club to rise form the ashes in exactly the same position as the one that went bust. Still in SL, no points deducted and so on.

It is fine for it to go bust and jobs be saved as you describe but it isn't fine for it to carry on as an entity we would all recognise as the Bradford Bulls (regardless of the holding company being new) as if nothing had happened. That would simply mean a legal mechanism had been used to shaft the creditors - which will include the clubs employees with no penalty. You can not run a professional sport like that and expect people to invest in it.

I agree, but it seams the law backs risk takers as opposed to sound financial planning.

Bring back the debtors prisons I say.



Whilst we are at it.

Hanging and other such liberal ideals....

No need to apologise, as you have misunderstood once again.

I want the CC abolished, however, if it is to remain then it must prove useful.

Abolish the ceiling, maintain a % cap of turnover/profit/some other measure.

Not that hard to understand is it?

Agreed. Perhaps I should have said "effectively abolished" to be more technically correct.

Btw on behalf of the other "usual suspects", I think we must apologise for continuing to oppose the CC even though Wigan are currently dominating the competitions......

As was pointed out on this forum numerous times over the last 5 years or so, we only opposed the CC on account of it's impact on our own club, not RL in general......................

Dave you obviously didn't read what I said properly. I said:



Which bit of that don't you and the usual suspects understand?



Copy and pasting purpose, aims etc didn't address my original point that the cap doesn't cause clubs to live beyond their means, bad management does.

Am I the only one that wants the Bulls to go into liquidation? nothing against the club or its fans just out of curiosity to actually see what happens.

Which bit of:

is so difficult to understand? The cap is no different to having a budget to live within your means, but if you spend beyond your budget it not the budget's fault is it? Bad management is to blame.

By the way if you think saying people were talking tosh is a personal insult you know neither the definition of "personal" nor "insult". Welcome back from your hibernation by the way, has it been nearly three months since a thread mentioned the cap?

What you actually said was:

"The cap have never had anything to do with whether clubs go bust or not. Whenever something like the Bulls situation happens the usual suspect come out with the usual tosh trying to blame the cap in the some way, instead of focusing on Directors of clubs mismanaging the finances."

Now given a stated aim of the cap is to "prevent(ing) Clubs trading beyond their means and/or entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements;" it is clearly supposed to have a lot to do with whether clubs go bust or not. It is supposed to help prevent it. As it was supposed to do when there was a 50% of turnover element. It has failed in this stated aim.

I also said "It is of course ultimately the Bulls directors fault but the cap has certainly failed in one of its stated purposes."

which for some reason you chose to ignore.

Not being funny WLA (and frankly without people who disagree, these forums would be dull), but which bit of DaveO's post above don't you understand?

If the 50% rule was kept in place it would help ensure clubs don't overspend. It wouldn't prevent it, of course, but it certainly would help.

I feel more for the poor sods who the Bulls owed money to and who on good faith expected to be paid duly,some poor family's with small business' will have been hit very hard
The folk who collectively donated the £500.000 to the fighting fund were being nothing more than oblivious to these sort of procedures

I have heard Fielden bleating about his donations to the cause and how it was money down the drain,oh really stuart you don't say, what did you think would happen to your money then?

the 50% rule is all well and good as long as any other expenditure by the club apart from players salaries does not exceed 50% of turnover as well.

Bradford spent less than 50% of their turnover on the salary cap.

Really? What did they spend the money on?

Which is what I paraphrased earlier - there was no need to repeat it again, but thanks anyway.



I didn't choose to ignore the bit about the Bulls Directors fault because it's what I said originally. For the second time it doesn't matter what the stated aim of the cap was, what I original said which you've seemed to disagree with again for some reason is that the cap has never had anything to do with a club going bust. Bad management is the only reason the Bulls are in the position they find themselves in. No matter what the stated aim of the cap on an RFL document says it has absolutely nothing to do with the Bulls spending much more than their income.

I'm still waiting for you and Dave to tell me how a document with some aims and objectives somehow made the Bulls Directors spend money they didn't have - was it a gun or knife the piece of paper held to their throats?



I actually agree with doing away with the flat cap and believe it should reward sensible ambition and investment, but even then a % of turnover is still a figure (like the flat cap figure) that doesn't stop clubs spending more on other areas on things they can't afford.

I've a soft spot for the Bulls, and I think even those who haven't don't want to see this happen to the club. It makes the game look amatuerish and has massive implications to the league in the future. Firstly, as the club has gone into administration, are they going to get a license next time they're given out? Will they be demoted at the end of the season (doubt it. The RFL would have to have a contingency plan in place for that to happen, and we all know they've none of them). Surely this proves that Bradford's application for a license was falsified in the first place. I hope they remain as a club, and continue to play at Odsall, but they shouldn't be allowed to claim a place in SL next year.

Also, intead of the fans having Belgian flags flying from their cars when they're going down the M62, from now on they should be made to have the Greece flag.

The RFL will keep Bradford in SL, what else will they do with odslum, turn it into the biggest Indian restaurant in England!!

The salary cap didn't make the directors overspend. It failed to prevent them overspending. It failed to meet its objectives. As did the licensing process, which is supposed to vet clubs management and finances. The whole system is a joke, overseen by clowns.

It doesn't but at the end they'll have played 27 games like everyone else.

Doesn't matter either way now

Thanks BK. I also offer my sincere apologies for continuing to oppose the cap.



The fact is that the Wigan club benefits significantly (in the short term at least) from the SC now that the club is competently run. We have an owner who doesn't want to burn millions of pounds of his own money on the club so we could never compete with Wire's apparently super rich owner if there was no SC. We have the best youth set up in the league by a country mile, which is a massive advantage, as shown in the recent injury crisis. Wigan are in an excellent position, albeit in a competion which is in serious danger in the long term.

The fact that the SC is good news for the short term interests of the club I support does not of course prevent me from opposing it as the failed and counterproductive measure that it is. The SC is a key part of a system that is now in utter disrepute, presided over by people who are to management what Ashley Young is to penalty taking. These muppets and the people running many clubs who are even more incompetent than the RFL are going to run the game into the ground. The SL will be reduced eventually to a small, semi-professional competition similar to the domestic French RL competition. That's where we will be in 10-20 years if this continues, the financial failures of clubs and dwindling real term incomes of players make it inevitable, unless major changes occur to the management and structures of the professional game.

But the cap still had zero to do with the current Bulls situation whether it failed its objectives or not - something some people still fail to understand, especially as they spend less than 50% of their turnover on the cap. You actually hit the nail on the real talking point which is the failure of the licensing system, unfortunately the cap obsessives can't see the wood for the trees.