there is a discussion to be had about centralised contracts for Tomkins, Clarke Currie and Watkins (?) and others.

If UK RL want it then the RFL board should take soundings and then present papers to RFL council and to SLE for discussion and voting. Theses discussions should include the amounts of money and the criteria for such decisions being made.

Instead we have had secrecy and 'somebody' at the RFL given discretion to hand out money as they see fit. Clubs have been kept in the dark and the notion of a level playing field is a joke.

The RFL Non exec directors are there to hold Barwick, Wood, Rimer , Draper et al to account on behalf of the game. Did they know these payments were being made?

Good on Aaron Bower for exposing this nonsense.

Aren't Parliament discussing this week whether or not to hold a vote of no confidence in the FA? Do you think they can hold one for the RFL?

Wow, take a look at our shrinking game and you tell me you've got confidence that it's leadership are fulfilling their role

I agree that the state of the game has changed, the expansion of the game outside the heartlands is here, albeit the heartlands themselves are struggling.

However its naive to simply use phases like "not fit for purpose" unless you know what their stated purpose is and can demonstrate how they haven't met that purpose.

I don't see how the game can punish a club like Salford for breaching the salary cap on one hand ... and provide the means for other clubs to (ostensibly) breach the salary cap with the other hand.

I am confused, concerned and disheartened

I'm confused more than anything. Who is the one player alleged to be? If this has happened without the agreement of the other clubs, personally if I were an owner I'd be suggesting that club isn't given a Super League licence until they pay the money back and reduce their cap to cover it.

If brought in as a policy, obviously they would have to spread it around. You can't give top ups to enable Warrington to keep 7 players, Wigan to keep 4 and not pay Wakefield anything because they don't spend over the cap anyway. That just isn't fair.