What chance of any money ever been repaid to anyone. I don't know the finances at the Storm, but i suspect that there's more chance of them going into admin than repaying the aggrieved.

Give the money to charity

They are 50% owned by News Limited, and have the sort of funds that enable them to pay almost £200k per year over the salary cap for 5 years.

Getting £50k back out of them won't send them scuttling off to the poor house, unlike some clubs in SL I could think of.

Ouch i wonder if Adeybull will reply to that one AG!

Your statement contradicts itself. If they broke the rules to put the team together then in what way, shape or form is that fair? So you're saying that you can pull together any team you like but as long as you play to the rules on the day, then all is good and happy?

As long as you play to the rules of the competition you are playing in, yes.

Does the WCC have a salary cap?

No but the Comp they won to earn the right to compete for the WCC does and they have cheated that system thus the knock on effect of been able to compete for the WCC.
Whichever way you look at it mate they "cheated" in a comp which has a direct effect on the WCC.

In effect, yes. The Super League has a salary cap, the NRL has a salary cap. To play in the WCC you need to win your respective competition. They haven't stuck to the rules of the NRL and as such did not play to the rules to get to the WCC.

So next time we're in the WCC, we could take a pick of the best players on British soil, register them in time and play them for the WCC and you would see this as being fair?

Shame really
Fair point overall there are only a select few who could afford such a hefty fine and payback demand.

An unfair one at that. Whilst the Australian team can field a team that gets paid more than the English team the world club challenge will be as unfair as ever.

The English WCC finalist should be able to pick a few players from other super league teams to make it fair IMO.

Or we could have a double rollover the following year and call it the camelot world club challenge

Well done to the Australian governing body for having the balls to do it unlike certain other governing bodies that I wont mention.

But its not just £50k that needs to be repaid - fines and return of prize money is near enough £1m. What view do News Ltd have of this, they may decide that they want no further part and stop funding - i wouldn't want to be associated with a concern that have done what they have.

Or failing that it could have been put towards getting a decent England boss.