The Rugby Union Premiership salary cap has been trimmed from £6.4 million to £5 million. That may be of some benefit to League clubs
The Rugby Union Premiership salary cap has been trimmed from £6.4 million to £5 million. That may be of some benefit to League clubs
I just don't see the point of it. If the clubs can't afford it, just negotiate releases or reductions with the existing players. Why lower the cap, means a club who can afford it suddenly has to axe players who would have had a contract or make them take less money.
In RL is was brought in to protect clubs from their owners. A lot of it was because of Wigan. Their success in the 90s wasn't generic, they did it by spending money they didn't have on signing every player that could breathe at all levels, youth, amateur and first team. Then they ran out of cash to keep the machine going and ultimately were it not for Whelan needing a multi-sport aspect to get planning permission for his football team's stadium, Wigan RL would have gone to the wall. They were horrified about that happening to other clubs and hence the cap came in. Ironically Wigan were one of the main opposition to the cap as the new owners wanted to spend their way out of situations as well.
My take is that there absolutely should be a cap in place to protect clubs from overspending, but that they should be based on the individual clubs and their revenues and guaranteed investment from their owners not the sport as a whole. There is a situation now where the Warrington/Saints/Wigans of Super League are being held back by the Wakefield/Cas/Huddersfield/Salford, with Leeds joining the Yorkshire side because of tightness/prudence rather than the more ambitious side. This could be taken to a whole new level by foreign investors. The Toronto owner wants to invest in the sport with Ottawa, New York and Valencia wanting to come on board. We've had it briefly with Koukash wanted to remove the cap and be ambitious. Soon enough there are going to be enough wealthy owners to form a league that could potentially make Super League and even the NRL seem very silly in terms of spending and investment and I'm all for that. I'd love to see a major RL competition do well, even if it meant Saints weren't in it. I'd love to watch Saints play in front of 15,000 in a British/European competition and then go home and watch on TV as New York play Barcelona in front of 50,000 in world league that's on another level and has all the games elite stars in it, as long as they were playing RL. It's far fetched at this stage, but the sport is headed for semi-pro status and Union moving to summer and becoming 'rugby' and taking over the world if we're not careful.
The trouble is we put a cap on the limit spent in terms of £££, in true terms a cap of % income, would be a fairer way of working and not penalise the successful clubs, whilst also protecting the less successful clubs. A level of scrutiny around "record breaking" sponsor deals and the like would obviously have to be in place but it should be already anyway.
As for adjusting the cap down, in the current environment I understand why it would be a conversation, but clubs and players have contracts. So surely this has to be upto the individual clubs to negotiate, as they will know their own financial situation better, rather than a one size fits all solution.
The issue here is that the new sky money will probably be less, take away from that any loan the clubs have taken from the RFL government scheme then the central money is going to be less.
Now the Yorkshire mafia rely solely on this money to keep the club chairman in blazers and whippets. Hence the state of the grounds over there. Leeds have just finished a major rebuilding of their ground and going off what happened to Saints will be struggling for cash at the moment. Hence the movement to reduce the cap to match the central funding.
Therefore these clubs don’t want the other clubs to gain any advantage due to the fact they are better funded and have significantly more revenue streams than just the central money.
The cap needs to be there otherwise Saints and Wire would end up like Wigan and Widnes did in the 80’s but the cap needs to be significantly higher than the central money so that the more financially sustainable clubs can use that to their advantage and help the game grow.
But there are probably only two financially sustainable English SL clubs: Leeds and Warrington. The rest of the league is essentially a competition between which club owners are richest and most willing to plug the gap. That's a fact of most sports now unfortunately and may be for the future but it's not really a question of the sustainable clubs being held back by the unsustainable.
Personally, even though we know income streams are going to be massively hit for this year and it's likely the next TV deal will be lower, it would make sense for now to keep the cap as it is and see how it pans out. Obviously with players already under contract changing the cap at this stage was ludicrous but going forward things will be different. The player market, with union reducing their own salary cap and the NRL taking a cut in its TV deal, is inevitably going to be affected in a downwards way so clubs should be able to get more bang for their buck for players they are seeking to sign or who are coming off contract. The cap is probably low enough now that you wouldn't want to lower it further to match the market but there is an argument, albeit an unpalatable one, to be made.
Warrington are in that lucky position where they are working towards the Rugby Union celery cap.
Its amazing, Warrington are financially sustainable even when they cannot fill their own stadium, see the salary cap as optional and given their playing staffs injury history what must be the largest medical department in the league. Me thinks they are only viable as long as Moran wants to out his money in.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/c...filing-history
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/c...filing-history
Accounts filed from almost 20 years for Wire and even longer for Saints.
Where do you get your information from?
1) never been found to be in breach of cap (people in glass houses etc)
2) What injury history sets Wire apart from the rest of SL?
3) Undoubtedly Moran’s money helps (as does utilising our stadium for rather more than match day) but most teams rely to a greater or lesser extent on investors. I am sure I have seen a number of topics on here about how Saints would have gone under if not for Eamon’s (sp) generosity. Indeed it’s rumoured he will even donate a few cans of beer to a coach load of fans on occasion.
So to sum up, other than you wanting to come across as rather bitter what is your actual point?
What do you have for me to be bitter of? We are better than you and have been consistently for decades. It simply my personal opinion, as its big money signing after big money signing with little from your academy and usually the big money signings have spotty injury history, Gareth Widdops shoulder being held on with chewing gum being an obvious case.
I have no idea WHY you would be bitter, but it was the only explanation I could come up with for your baseless post. Making up stuff doesn’t really count. As for a player missing a few rounds amounting to requiring the largest medical staff in history... So the real question as ever is why bother referencing Wire in this way? Based on your last answer I confirm the question is rhetorical, I don’t expect an answer that makes any sense.