He'd get slaughtered on here if he aired such views on the salary cap. Does he know what he's on about or is he completely wrong?

What's your source?

League Express or League Weekly.

Obviously he is managing it fantastically.

Ian also thinks their should be special dispensation for players who've been at club over a certain period of time, as well as juniors who've been brought through the clubs youth system. Both of which I totally agree. Particularly the dispensation for juniors.

I'm pretty sure he knows the club's books better than anyone on here so he is best placed to say whether the club can spend beyond the current cap limit or not

He is, of course, correct.

Brett Kenny (or whatever his name is on here) would like to think that Wigan have endless millions ready to throw at players, but then he's always been a bit deluded about the Communist Cap.

in lenegan we trust

I respect his views and I wouldn't want Wigan to throw money at players they can't afford. People may moan about the salary cap but if it was got rid of we wouldn't enjoy the current ticket prices we have.

Since Ian Lennegan took over at Wigan we have been going in the right direction, so I would have to agree with what he says about the cap

I'd be more than happy to pay more for my ticket if it meant watching the very best players in the world week in week out.

Also I’m if the SC was abolished I’m sure a shrewd operator like IL would be linking up with business to get ‘sponsorship’ type deals as well.

You will never convince me the SC is a good idea. I honestly just can’t see why a sensible approach just can’t be adopted? If you aint got it don’t spend it but if you do have it why not go all out to create that something special?

Simply if a club ruins itself into administration there is no one to blame other than the owners. I’m not going to go out tomorrow and buy a 14 bedroom mansion as I’d be bankrupt in about a second if I did. I don’t however begrudge someone who has the money buying one. The same can be said for RL if Warrington and their money rich owner want to sign Inglis on the highest wage in RL history I really can’t see a problem with it.

If the CC was scrapped then bankrolling a RL club would be more expensive. Given this his views are hardly a massive revelation are they?

Of course that could be me being deluded again. (or some muppet on the wrong board)

I was under the impression that Sir Ian and a couple of other Directors / owners (Heatherinton and McManus included) voted for a change in the SC just over a year ago? only for it to be vetoed by the majority of other sides?

Have i just made this up?

The only thing we miss out on from having a SC is big media attention for huge big money signings. I can cope with that.

Eventually we will see an extremely even competition at the top, we are almost there. It will work.

However, I personally think there should be reward for more home grown players in the team.

I heard something like that, but thought it was more to do with a special dispensation for clubs who had come through the academy (as stated by another poster earlier in the thread).

The other clubs decided that Wigan, Leeds and Saints were just looking after their own interests, which they were.. by taking junior development seriously

If this were a newspaper story, the headline should be:

"Shock as employer argues for lower pay for employees".

IL has done wonders for the club but on this issue he is wrong.

In his normal business life IL has to compete to hire and retain talented staff, without the benefit of a restraint of trade keeping wages down.

Of course it is short-sighted to think this is a good thing.

In the long term this dumbing down, this lack of ambition that BK refers to as communist is going to kill the professional game.

The SC has been at the same level for over a decade now. In real terms player wages are way down on what they were (they've been eroded by inflation).

We need to start talking about raising the SC over time - if the SC isn't raised (at least in line with wage inflation) then the professional game is inevitably heading for a slow but terminal decline. It has declined significantly already in the last 12 years -the revenue of many clubs has dropped by over 30% in real terms.

If I were IL I would be pretty worried about that.

I'm quite sure that there is £50,000 dispensation of a player's wages against the salary cap once he reaches his testimonial year. I do think £50,000 is quite shabby and could be increased as 10 years is obviously a long time.

I imagine it's a ploy to stop people saying we are over the cap as they normally do.

Have you got a source for that revenue analysis? If that is correct you are suggesting that we are losing money in real terms and should put that under more pressure by increasing player salaries across the board? Where is that extra money going to come from to pay for these increases? I'm not against raising the cap to reflect increases in revenue in the game but it looks to me like this will be entirely dependant upon the next television deal being significantly higher given that club revenue streams are already under pressure from the general econonic situation.

I wonder how IL would reply if you asked him directly how he felt about having to tolerate agents who seem hellbent on advertising his best young players to RU?

Given that he's a fairly honest chap, I'd imagine he'd admit it's damn inconvenient.

Things are not too bad for him at present. Somehow or other - with no little astute wheeling and dealing, I'd imagine - he has got most of our best youngsters signed on longish contracts. For once, we haven't got a 'Kyle Eastmond' situation to cope with, wherein a very promising player is leading us a merry dance before he makes his inevitable decision to leave.

It's easy for IL to be upbeat about the Cap at present.

But if one of our kids really develops into a star over the next few years, we'll struggle to compete for his signature when it's contract renewal time unless we have some kind of dispensation to give him a bit more - and everyone knows this, even though so many of us still refuse to admit it. Only when some kind of Cap alteration has been introduced allowing us to give our best kids what they are worth without it damaging the rest of our team-building plans, will agents start to view RL as a viable long-term option for their best clients.

And I really wish people would stop talking about paying players more as if it's somehow immoral. Most RL players are currently earning derisory salaries compared to other sporting counterparts. What's more, most of us, if not all, would gleefully take higher pay-cheques if they were offered. We're not talking the obscene fees that top footballers get, just a little something extra to suggest that we actually place value on the superb sporting spectacle that we call RL.

Paul Wellen thinks it needs changing. www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... codes.html

Paul Wellen thinks it needs changing. www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyl ... codes.html

Cruncher has got this pretty much nailed IMHO. It's a travesty that a club can bring players through their ranks from the age of 14+ and be in someway restrained from doing all they can to keep them. For years RL has been talking about too many NRL players coming to super league but not put in any incentive to clubs to rear their own talent.

Deano G was making quite a valid point too until he mentioned this 30% loss in revenue (in real terms) which blew his own argument straight out of the water.

Source? It's simple maths based on the SC itself.

When the SC was brought in a number of clubs were operating at the maximum salary cap.

Now 12 years later (after inflation of say 3% per year - the RPI figures would be higher than this but its a nice round number) we are being told by club owners that clubs cannot afford to spend more than an amount which inflation adjusted is less than 70% of what clubs were able to spend 12 years ago.

To take an indvidual example that shows how wages have been eroded, a player on £30k is on a wage worth about £21k 12 years ago.

If we keep the SC at is current level for another 12 years every £100 of wages paid to players would be worth only about £48 at the original prices.

I know many Saints fans desperately cling to the SC because the noughties were a very rare period of dominance over Wigan but you need to get over your emotional attachment to it and look at the facts.

The fact is that whether the SC is the root cause of the financial decline of RL or not (and personally I don't think the SC is the main cause of the problems RL has, it is just one example of a wider failure to have the right structures and controls in place to ensure that clubs plan properly for financial stability and sustainable growth and then deliver those plans), it is damaging the game.

Your point about whether or not clubs could afford to pay more misses the point. We should be setting aspirational goals (keeping pace with inflation isn't an aspiration by the way, in the long term it is a necessity, if we don't do it in the long term then the game will inevitably become semi-professional because in 10-15 years' time most players won't earn enough to be full time RL players.)

We need a system which ensures financial stability and growth for clubs. It isn't the job of the SC to do this. Even the most wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth fanatical supporters of the SC have given up claiming it can do this - the evidence is too obvious to ignore given fiascos such as Wakey, Crusaders, London, Bradford, Gateshull etc etc.

The clubs should produce business plans, have them independently assessed and when they have been approved they should be forced to stick to them.

I would argue the we should be putting in place a modest SC rise, say 3% per year, perhaps delaying its introduction until 2013 to allow clubs to rebuild after the recession. This would need to be accompanied by some proper financial controls to ensure that clubs did not overspend. (Frankly whether or not the SC is raised these controls are desperately needed.)

Under the present system clubs have no incentive whatsoever to grow their revenues even to keep pace with inflation and if that continues in the long term it will lead inevitably to the death of the professional game.

I have absolutely no issue with players earning more money - I wish they were all millionaires.

My issue is with those who try to kid themselves that RL has stockpiles of cash ready to throw at players if the cap is raised. When arguably the biggest club (Wigan) makes losses at the current cap level, raising the cap is not the no-brainer some people seem to think it is.

As usual you make excellent points Cruncher.

Your comment about RL fans being upset at what players earn is particularly interesting.

Sometimes I wonder whether the people who are so in favour of the SC are motivated more by a bizarre and paranoid hatred and fear of Wigan (we are now back on top and IL's comments on this issue show that he is the last person to want to throw money around!) or by envy over player wages.

I think these days - despite Saints fans stuck in a late 90s timewarp popping up occasionally to rant about Wigan fans wanting to buy everyone etc - most of those in favour of the SC seem to be motivated by this anti-player agenda. They can't be motivated by a genuine desire to stop clubs failing financially since the SC doesn't do that, as the examples of Wakey and Crusaders show most recently, with lots of other clubs having got into severe difficulties in the SC era. Some wax lyrical about the mythical level playing field (which is always going to come in sometime soon, despite the continuing stranglehold that big clubs have on the league) - it's hard to take them seriously in 2011.