With the news that theres serious discussion about reducing the salary cap next season, how do we all feel that Leeds, arguably the biggest club in the country, are reported to be one of the clubs in favour of the reduction? Got to be honest, im massively disappointed in the club that we'r in favour of it.

Warrington reportedly announcing the signing of Greg Inglis tomorrow when they already have Widdop and Austin as marquee

Well, the pay cut the players have taken also there's a lot of the room on the cap as it stands, so it doesn't surprise me.

We have just spent tens of millions developing Headingley only for our income to totally disappear. While I don’t want the salary cap to reduce, as so too would the quality of players in Super League, it’s understandable why Hetherington does. Balancing the books is going to be an impossible task over the next few years.

It's incredibly disapointing. The players have already carried far too much of the burden for the game's poor commercial performance in the last 20 years (something that Hetherington has himself called out) and whilst it's no suprise to see some club owners and chairman expecting them to carry even more, it's disapointing to see Leeds being one of them. The salary cap is around £1m less in real-terms than it was in 2000, and that's pretty shameful even before you consider any attempt to cut it further.

Hetherington has generally voted against rising the cap in the past as he felt Leeds had a competitive advantage - at the time the club had been very good at developing a lot of first-team ready young players who could fill the squad cheaply. Crucially, unlike the likes of Wigan, they were even better at convincing those players to stay. Whether it was down to culture or some other reason, Leeds have retained their top talent in a way that Wigan seemingly couldn't, and Hetherington used the salary cap to press home that advantage.

I can understand that logic from a competitive perspective, even if I can disagree with it from the point of view that the sport should generally be looking after the players better than it is. But even from the competitive perspective, the case for voting along similar lines today seems to make less sense. Yes there is a good set of young players at Headingley, but nothing that I doubt other top clubs could replicate and certainly nothing like the class of 2002-03.

If Hetherington is worried about the sustainability of the business post-COVID and the recession that is going to follow, then cut the cloth accordingly - Leeds can do that without imposing similar cuts on those who may be able to maintain their current level of spending. However, it isn't a good look for either the club or the sport for it's most commercially successful club and the club that has been most successful in the summer era to support this sort of proposal.

Its not just a case of Leeds finances though, if Leeds only want to pay 1.8m they can, why vote to stop others paying 2.1m if they want to, its extremely self serving imo and its only the players and fans who lose out.

If Warringtons Multi millionaire owner wants to put enough money in to enable them to pay 2.1m but our multi millionaire owner dosnt, why should Warringtons be prevented from doing so? They could both afford to if they chose to.

Agree 100%

Exactly.

If Leeds, or any other club, can't afford to spend to the full salary cap, that is their problem to fix.

It isn't right to make their problem everybody else's problem.

Leeds fans demand we challenge for trophies every year

That's not really relevant. It certainly doesn't give Leeds a right to try and keep a leash on those clubs that can sustainably out-spend them at any given point in time.

Leeds should be winning trophies because they're raising the standards, not by being complicit in lowering them.

Because we have a salary cap in place. You cant have a cap and then allow teams to pay more.

Gary can only comment on our finances he wont know other clubs budgets. I doubt he even knows ours at this moment in time. If we cant afford to pay full cap after this thats the way he needs to vote (if there is even s vote).

Whilst we might not want to admit it our club is heavily in debt at the moment and whilst that debt might have been msnsgable before Covid it will make life difficult for the forseeable.

Not sure what you mean in the first sentence, im not saying teams should be allowed to pay more than the cap.

The caps already there at 2.1m for 2021 so why not leave it in place as it is? Theres no obligation for teams to spend the full cap, but the options there for teams that can. I know its in Leeds interests for the cap to be 1.8 m if they can only afford 1.8m...But its not in the interests of the players, fans or the game long term. To vote for a reduction is self serving imo.

Theres always been teams that spend less than the cap, we'd just be one of them teams for a while, better than dumbing down the whole comp yet again.

Theres 5 clubs wanting the cap to remain at 2.1m, thats potentially 1.5 million to go to the players, cant see why anyone would want to take that earning potential away from already relatively underpaid players.

Lets see where the sport is at the end of all this.

Nobody appears to have mentioned agents when it comes to salary cap. It might be £2.1 and the club only wants to spend £1.8. But an agent will push for more if they think a club has space.

I’ve always believed that the cap should rise inline with inflation. But it hasn’t.

So lets raise it and give Salford , Wakey , H.K.R and others even less chance to compete . What some of you do not get is whilst Hetherington cares about Leeds as they obviously pay his wages he also cares about R.L in general . The Marquee player was brought in for the reason of bringing quality players in to the sport and if Wire want to waste that on a near 35 year old who will have been retired 2 years then more fool them