Would indeed be picked up and has been picked up and indeed is covered in the rules.

Saddened is correct in his statements about salary cap avoidance and also mentions a currently legal practise of manipulation of image rights to lower a clubs/players tax liability... but you are in fact once again wrong!

From The Australian...

"MELBOURNE Storm has been stripped of two NRL titles and three minor premierships for rorting the salary cap system in an unprecedented day for rugby league in Australia. "

To rort.......to cheat or abuse the system, what a great verb


It has also come out to day that London Wasps and Newcastle Falcons owe HMRC large sums of money following investogations by HMRC into the tax treatment of image rights. London Wasps have been threatened with a winding up order.

I think she's bang on McF,who else would they of played for and won international honours?

Just to add.
Note to the RFL-this what an organisation with a set of nadgers looks like!

you're dead right mate! name and shame plus bans should be the order of the day! as you said this should be the way forward for those who took the bungs! as harsh as it seems I think the powers that be have taken the soft option. the nrl, origin and the international setup needs it's marque players. to be honest you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out who would have got the money! 1,4,7,9,10 and a few more I would think.

Yes true, but they did caught in the end!!!!

This brings us back to the discussion me, you, Adey Bull and G1 had last month on the VT.

We can take the image rights tax manipulation trick out of this discussion though, because we all agree it is currently legal or maybe not currently illegal is a better way to put it, so until the HMRC resolve this in court then we have to assume that this does not break any cap rules and the RFL can not stop this happening. We all know HMRC are going to have a long fight on their hands and we also assume it will not be retrospectively applied, although it is possible! Even then it would be the issue of tax payments and not breaking the cap that would be the issue.

We did all agree that there are ways around the cap and third party payments was the most likely way and hardest trick for the RFL and auditors to trace, even with a rule in the cap regulations asking for full disclosure of directors financial information if requested, but of course legally we knew that could be a challenge.

It brought it to the ultimate conclusion that I think we all agreed on (sort of), that it was possible but the chances are you would get caught at some point and that the risks for doing so would and should be very high. They were also breaking the law of the land (one assumes) as well, so I expect the club to facing an investigation by the Aussie Inland Revenue (or similar) and directors, player and officials to be facing big fines and possible time inside.

I think they should just lose the franchise at the end of the season and put it up for sale, ban the current directors from ever having involvement with a NRL club again and therefore effectively bankrupt the club and take the owners with it.

So we know it's possible to do something similar with the live cap he in SL but the questions is, is anyone actually taking the risk... this is the bit I doubt to be honest!

I would not be so hard on the RFL mate, I suspect they would have done similar if not more TBH in similar circumstances. The breaches by clubs over here were very, very minor in comparison and to be fair the the RFL again they did strengthen the rules to make sure that they had much more power in future and all the clubs agreed!

Truly unbelievable. 5 years in the making.

As I understand it though from, Adey Bull in particular, this will be subject to legal challenge by the clubs and it is anyone's guess who will win! It is not clearly current legal or illegal and that is the problem HMRC have here. We know that the HMRC lost the David Beckham case in court and it was speculated that was because they were able to demonstrate that his image really was worth the money they were giving to him for it, the difficulty the HMRC is going to have is agreeing any limits on image rights and how they will decided on a player by player basis, sport by sport basis and just a blanket figure for all sports people?

If they go for a universal, lets say 50%, then most RL and RU's clubs will probably be happy with that and football less happy, but how do you decided how much someone's image is worth?

Very very easy mate

1. Cat walk strut off!

2. How well can a person vogue!

3. blue steel!

3. And the all important dance off!

I don't want to sound like sour grapes, or desperate or anything.

But surely, if they have been sripped of the titles, their minor premierships, and this seasons points, surely they should be stripped of the WCC also?

Leeds should be quick on getting this message across.

to be honest mate nobody is gonna spring to melbournes defence on this one. I think it's a given, but agree they should be stripped of the title! they are the best team in the world at cheating though!

It doesn't mention anything about their status as world champions, however as they've been stripped of the NRL title which enabled them to play in the world club challenge in the first place, one would imagine that the stripping of the WCC title will follow suit automatically. I'm also assuming that as 2007 and 2009 are to remain blank in the NRL record books with effectively no winners, then the same will apply to the 2010 WCC? Will be interesting to see if they confirm this or not in the days to come though.

I wonder how many bonfires there will be at sl and nrl clubs today? Hahaha