That's why sports men have agents



FWIW, I think if the situation is as some say and his agent has told him to play clubs off against each other and its back fired, I think young Mr Briscoe should be seeking some legal advice for potential loss of earnings against his agent.

Very few people, if any, are "on his back", it's a discussion forum and things are being, errrm, discussed.

Tom will do what Tom feels is right for Tom, and I won't blame him for that, but he should keep a weather eye on the players who have gone before him and thought the grass was greener.

I am not quite sure about your motivation in turning this into a slanging match or ing contest.

That's the point, I don't think the winger role is important enough to warrant £100k+. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they should just earn a poor wage, there are some worthy of £60-80k but I don't think it's a position that should take up more than that of your cap.
To put it in to context, if TB signs a £110k per year deal he'll probably be earning £30-60k more than Houghton. Who's more important to our team?

lets be honest here, no professional sports person is actually "worth" what they get paid, if I had a car accident would I want David Beckham on £200k a week looking down at me or a nurse on £22k a year?

This isn't about Tom, it's about any winger, not worth almost a tenth of the cap.

If it were £100k pa its about 6.6% of the cap (or there abouts), not quite a tenth.

Wingers is the last position I'd be spending marquee wages on.

It's all speculation anyway, for all we know TB might not have been offered £100k+ by anyone.

If that's true, at that point my money would be on Sinfield, McGuire, Peacock, and Burrow. Would expect Moon to have joined on a pretty penny since, too.

don't think you're far wrong with that observation.

If we could fit him in the cap with everyone else we want, I don't care how much he's on.

it may not even be that as clubs get breaks for salary cap for having players that play for England, were home grown or have been at the cub for a certain number of years.

the breaks are not that generous, Horne and Yeaman will be using up our allocation I would imagine.

And we still have to generate the income to pay them, as a loss making club keeping a luxury on an inflated wage doesn't make sound business sense.

some of them are fairly generous to the point where its possible that Horne isnt even counting a penny to the salary cap as hes home grown, been at club for x years and played for GB.

thought it was £50k max, may well be wrong.

Reminds me of when Barrie Mac was commentating at a game where the forwards had done a big shift of tackling to keep the opposition in their own half but after the scrum the winger knocked on at the first tackle.

"Wingers should be made to pay the admission fee to get in the ground", he reflected.

salary cap discount for 10 years like we do with Horne and Yeamo

What position do people think should be top earners after your half backs and maybe hooker ? Because really it is the wingers who finish a lot of moves that finish in try's and usually the wingers are most teams top try scorers . So surely some must be worth there weight in gold and be able to demand top money .

My understanding is 50K total against players with more then 10 years at the club (Not 50K per player), So, currently Horne & Yeman, presumably next season that 50K will be split 3 ways with the addtion of Whiting?

last i heard with all benefits etc to the club the salary cap could be pushed through £2.1 million, but how exactly this is calculated is unclear.

Like you were actually in the room at the time.

Leeds run a very flat salary structure, based on age, number of appearances, contract length. They also are very generous with prize winnings for the playing staff. Of course, prize winnings are not counted towards the cap.

They also have some fairly clever finance people

Was thinking about this earlier.

Halfback is by far the most important so he gets the biggest allowance for me, then a Fullback. Hooker is an interesting position as it depends on what you want them to do, Cam Smith kicks in general play, organises with Cronk and kicks goals, so rightly is highly paid. However, if you have a SO that does that and your hooker is solely distribution and tackling then he drops down below the SO. Then probably one of my centres. On equal measures I'd want 4-5 really good forwards spread between the front and back row. Then I'd want my other centre and the rest of my forwards, then the wingers.
Suppose it all depends on what a player brings as I'd expect Ellis will be on more than any of our halves, but these players are a premium, and I don't see Briscoe in that bracket.

I doubt their pay structure is flat. I'd expect Peacock, Sinfield, McGuire, Burrow, Moon and Hall to be on quite a bit more than Watkins, BJB, Hardaker, Bailey, Vickery etc.

Yeh, those players you mention first will most likely be on more than the others, but it is well known that Leeds' salary structure is alot 'flatter' than most of the other clubs close to or at full cap.

Sinfield has alluded to it in interviews a few times over the years, saying that there's a philosophy amongst the senior players there that if they accept a salary less than they probably could get/deserve, the club can get more for it's money within the salary cap (if that makes sense). From what I've been told, Sinfield, rather than the Leeds board, is the main instigator behind this way of thinking. He was brought up in a very socialist-thinking household, and I think he tries to bring some of those philosophies into the Leeds club.


Regarding the salary cap exemptions, there are a number of exemptions available:
- £50k per club, providing they have a player with ten years minimum service.
- A maximum of £100k per club on players they've brought through their academy who go on to play for England. So, Hull could get this with Briscoe, if Westerman was to play for England, Cas could get the £100k exemption.
- Win Bonus, any win bonuses paid to players after a club has won 14 games is exempt.
- Appearances Bonus, any appearance bonus paid to players after their 18th game is exempt.
- Cup, only QF, SF and Final count towards the cap.
- Prize Money, if a player is paid a proportion of competition prize money from the club, this is exempt.

So, there is the possibility there of going way beyond the cap. Regarding Briscoe, I imagine most (if not all) of his salary is exempt, so he'll be worth keeping as he's effectively not counting towards the cap. I don't think yeaman & Horne will count towards this £100k rule, although I may be wrong.

I think there may also be a rule on Rugby Union players too, I seem to remember hearing of it when Wigan signed Powell a few weeks back.

I've heard that also.