Quote rugbyreddog="rugbyreddog"It seems we spend the cap but don't get the players.'"
I've tried to explain on numerous occasions ways that one club may be able to get more bang for their bucks than another, regardless of the supposedly "fixed" salary cap.
But seems folk just ignore it
Just one example since you raised the question of Iestyn - think on this bit of...speculation, on my part:
When we were found in breach of the salary cap, what was a major cause that was fairly widely (if unofficially) explained at the time? Iestyn's image rights were being paid by an independent third party (and so should not have counted on the cap) - but the club screwed up and took an advert in a matchday programme from that third party, which made that third party "connected". And thereby brought those payments into the cap.
See what I just said? Money to Iestyn paid by an independent third party. That will likely mean he earned - from his rugby - rather more than the club was paying him. Now, when he left, do people think that other players were able to do likewise, and on such a scale? And if not (and I'm in that camp) then you have an immediate reduction in the overall total that your players earn from the game, and therefore an immediate reduction in overall ability and quality. In fact, from the minute those earnings fell within the cap and we will presumably have had to economise elsewhere to accommodate the contractual commitment? This is all deduction and speculation, but anyone care to find the holes in my logic?
I suspect there may still be some examples of third-party image rights - and, apropos to nothing in particular I recall our most marketable player was presented in the T&A as the new face of a luxury car dealership (not an existing sponsor as far as I know) the day before it was announced he had signed a new contract - make of that what you will. But on the same scale? very much doubt it.
And on nothing like the scale that the likes of Scully will surely have received for image rights from Gillette? Or Iestyn from Tissot when at Leeds? And who knows what others maybe at Wire and Stains?
And thats before we get into the "more bang for your bucks" with the tax-free payments currently being investigated by HMRC and the RFL, where I understand we are not significantly in the frame.
Maybe the reason folk ignore these issues is because they might, just might, be an inconvenient truth?