I should think we will just be carrying on as if the continuing licence is a given. I don't think you could meaningfully plan for the alternative anyway.

I don't see how the RFL could possibly not say we have passed our probation, unless something goes really pear shaped between now and the announcement, but the we'd probably be down the pan anyway. I really don't see that happening.

Finally I agree that technically the lack of an early decision could hamper our planning, contracts etc., but don't think there's a cat in hell's chance of the RFL taking that into account and making an early announcement. I base that on the precedent of what they did to us last time round, culminating in the unsupportable decision to slash our funding and divvy it between the other clubs. They didn't seem to have our inability to plan / sign or re-sign players etc. anywhere on their top ten list, did they?

I'd be surprised if it wasn't quietly waved through - it is the only sensible option. In large part for the reasons FA outlined, but also having come this far it'd be bizarre to suddenly get all hard-ass about things. It'd be the worst of both worlds.

The bigger question is what'll happen to the licensing system when this period has run its course. The announcement of the next round is due in a little over a year, so if we're going to have a different system (and even if they try to gloss over it to a degree, we have to), they need to indicate what it is going to be pretty soon.

The RFL won't make any announcement as this "threat" is as hollow as every other Licence "threat" they have made whether it be about finances/ground improvements/crowds or whatever. Basically don't go bust this season and your safe. Same goes for the next round of licensing which will follow the usual process of a load of rhetoric followed by Nigel Wood picking his favourite 14 teams with a token change (Sheffield in for Cas is my guess) to keep people believing there is some merit to the system

So easy to be critical of the RFL. They are not the ones who have for 120 years failed to properly run sports clubs so as to prevent them going bust. Clubs have to be protected from themselves, with very little money available to clubs or the RFL there is not a great deal the RFL can do. Unless you are an inbred Wigan hillbilly & want the cap scrapped so they can be dominant again I am not seeing many sensible alternatives, & I am buggered if I know many.

Look the RFL cant even get a sponsor for SL let alone make any early decisions on if we are going to stay in SL next year, and as for the next round of licensing who knows my be the force will be with them

Maybe we should put a call in to Qatar. Obviously some Qatari who is not quite potless has taken a shine to girlieball, and makes this frank assessment of the 'glittering' European soccer scene"The European crisis means the continent is no longer able to bear the cost of football clubs. "'"

It's not the idea of a cap that I see as wrong, it's the fact it is such an arbitrary number, bearing no relation to the club, it's income, or it's potential.

Saying "You can all spend £1.6m on salaries" is the most ludicrous thing anyone has ever done in sport. It penalises those clubs who can (and often do) generate way more than this figure, and encourages those that don't generate the income to spend money they haven't got (societies problem all 'round these days).

If the salary cap was based on matchday revenues - and by that I mean genuine 'through the gate' revenues, not backhanded one off 'sponsorships' - then what would be the problem? If 15-20,000 fans turn up at Wigan/Leeds and pay £15-£25, why should they lose players to NRL/Union simply because other clubs cant get 5,000 through the gate, even at reduced prices? If only 3,000 people can be bothered to watch a team, then I'm sorry but you will be watching a crap team. If you turn out in more numbers, then your team will be allowed to improve as revenues improve. Again, why is that such a difficult concept?

The current situation whereby (to keep top players) clubs with genuine spare cash have to skirt around the salary cap by offering outside perks, family jobs, and elongated contracts, simply because certain other clubs shout 'foul' as they can't afford it is farcical. I'm surprised the RFL haven't stipulated all players have to drive Trabants and live in identical state run apartment blocks so no-one looks more equal than the others!

Thing is they [ihave[/i to make an announcement.

The current Bulls' licence [iends[/i in October, which leaves a full season to be completed before any new 'full' licensing round comes into force. Even if it turns out to be the easy, logical and straight forward one of, "keep calm and carry on", they [istill [/ihave to say it.

The system you seem to want is the one which failed previously though, when it left us with just one club, which bought all the very best players just to let them moulder in the reserves for no other reason than to prevent other clubs from signing them.

No system is ever perfect though, and as you rightly point out, neither is the salary cap. Incidentally, we aren't losing players to either the RU or NRL because they have a free for all, but because [itheir[/i cap is set higher. Not sure if they're offering better model Trabants though.. The cap in the UK has suffered from a certain amount of 'mission creep' as well, initially set up to [hopefully] prevent clubs overspending, it became a mission to even out the league and get a closer competition, whilst losing the overspending element. Again as you point out, it's hardly worked there either.

At the end of the day, cap or no cap, clubs have to generate income and big city clubs with larger catchment areas are always going to dominate. The one element you missed out was the rôle of the 'sugar daddy', who provide income over and above that generated by a well run business. These can be capricious though, and can go as quickly as they come and, whilst in situ, they can distort the internal, particularly player market, in the game. In my opinion, we allow these people to run unchecked within the game at our peril.

I think you entirely miss the point that the main aim of the salary cap was precisely to hold back clubs that would otherwise buy up all the best talent simply because they are better off.

It is a given that there will always be far lesser-supported clubs and the idea was to make it possible for them to be competitive on the pitch. To a large degree this has succeeded, especially as you can never actually eliminate the financial gulf between the have-nots and the have-fook-alls, and as the rules can limit direct overspending, but can never exclude creative 'other ways' of securing expensive players.

The salary cap is a bit like pouring oil on troubled waters, it is effective, but can only do so much. It is better than the alternative was.

However where you are fundamentally wrong is in saying the salary cap "encourages those that don't generate the income to spend money they haven't got ". This is nonsense. No club ever set out to bankrupt itself and "spend money it hasn't got", there may be a long history of over-ambition and financial mismanagement but where is this "encouragement"?

All teams, and especially the most successful ones, rely on financial largesse in the large part, not on gate receipts alone, important though they are. Many clubs are propped up by financial backers and to suggest (as you are doing) that wealthy benefactors should effectively be be banned is about as silly a suggestion as I've seen. I agree entirely that the existence of what have become commonly and irritatingly known as "sugar-daddies" puts the clubs they finance in a vulnerable position but without such people, SL of today would be little different from the Championship and I am pretty sure you know this.

And even then, the Championship clubs struggle financially because the demand for the standard of teams and for success invariably is a large gap away from the available gates and funds which are needed to achieve it. That seems to be true at all levels of sport.

I like the idea of a club paying for the right to go over the cap.

Maybe a 2:1 ratio

For example if Wigan want to go over the cap by £100k, they have to pay in addition £200k to be shared with the other 13 clubs.

If a £100k player is going to cost them £300k in total, they would really, really need to be sure they want that player. And some money gets shared around the league.

He has been given the all clear to play again

Well, back to the topic, we have 9 first team players OOC at the end of this year.

Included in there is current SL top try scorer Brett Kearney, as well as home grown players such as Langley, Donaldson and Addy. It would be unfair if we lose one of our best players as well as having our academy system once again raided simply because the RFL are dragging their feet over this issue.

I mean, the punishments handed out by the RFL against us already mean we missed last year's play-offs as well as a large slice of our income being denied and handed out to the rest of the league. Are we now to be denied the chance to retain our top players?

Gledhill tweeted earlier that a decision on next years license is due in next fortnight.

Well, as it would be hard to point to any one thing they've done particularly wrong, and as we sit pretty third in the league, and playing some fine rugby, what's to decide?