Quote MikeTommo="MikeTommo"Even if it is found to be true that Puletua had a second contract, I wonder whether Salford would still have actually broken the cap last season. With Locke & Hock leaving mid way through the season I'd imagine that there would have been a fair amount of money free. Would adding the alleged £40k send us over the cap?
That's of course not to say that other players don't / didn't have similiar contracts! I guess the easy out for the RFL is to say the spirit of the cap was broken and fine Salford along with a 2 - 4 point deduction?
It seems the RFL have been investigating for three months already. I wonder whether now that it's in the public domain, the RFL might speed up the process.'"
The problem for Salford being they, by the sounds of the story, didn't report the 2nd contract to the RFL for salary cap management. If they did then it wouldn't be an issue as they'd have to have been under the cap for the contract and players registration to be lodged.
If they didn't report it, then it doesn't really matter whether they were under the cap or not. They attempted to conceal off-salary cap payments to a player.
Not to mention the only real reason for arranging to have 2 contracts for players is to avoid the salary cap.