Quote: jakeyg95 "Why is it up to Cas to defend the sport? It's up to Cas to defend themselves, it's up to the RFL to defend the sport.
I can't imagine it would be too difficult to just start adding clauses into contracts from now on that explicitly protect clubs against this kind of thing so it's not really a case of open season on all RL players.'"
It's not open season anyway and no other clauses are needed.
Fees have always had to be paid for players under contract.
Sale tried it on in the hope Cas would whimper and give up. Cas didn't and have received an acceptable fee.
The issue is that it seems players from RL can be registered to play RU before the fee is either agreed or set in court. As such, we can't stop any player leaving for RU. However, it wouldn't have been in the court's power to change this anyway.
I think the RFU should not have allowed Sale to register Solomona until it was clear Sale had agreed a fee with his former club. But this is for the RFL to negotiate, not Castleford, and not even the court could enforce this.