Agree with this. However it's all of Koukash's doing.
This kind of thing does also highlight the bizarre paranoia of some RL fans. On Twitter I've already seen Salford fans believing the RFL "want to kill the club" or that companies associated with Salford could sue the RFL for loss of earnings. I simply don't understand these people. If I were a Salford fan my anger would be 100% directed at the clown running my club who has put my club into this position.

Agree with this. Which is why I think larger punishments need to be handed out with bans for club officials involved.

As for the points deduction as you say with the split into the 8's there has to be a different way of administering the points deduction. So going on a 20 point deduction, I reckon Salford should get a 15 point deduction for the regular season (ie the 23 rounds up until the 8's start) and then a 5 point deduction as soon as the 8's start. As the 8's roughly make up a quarter of the season.

It would also depend on when the punishment was laid down too. As you say a 20 point deduction now is fairly meaningless....if the investigation takes 5 months, and into August, a 20 point deduction at that point of the season could be fairly disastrous for them if they are in the middle 8 at that point. The RFL can choose the punishment, and when to apply it, without any sort of transparency or accountability into their decision making process.

As usual with the RFL there will inevitably be more questions than answers once this situation is "resolved".

The reason such arrangements are likely to end in tears is because without knowing anything about the wages, once a club signs a whole raft of plainly very expensive players, one after another after another, everybody knows they aren't coming for half-pay or out of love and admiration of the chairman. So what's left?

or make it like Melbourne, where they don't earn any points an start the 8's on -10 or something.

you still cheated in the loose sense of the term.

This was inevitable - what's not clear is how the RFL will handle a situation that could, if seen through to its logical conclusion, kill off Salford's season and drive one of the wealthiest owners in the sport out of the game altogether - which they won't want to do. MarwanK's constant baiting of the RFL on social media suggests that he is aware of that fact, and uses it to his advantage.

Interesting times...

The way they were treated? I think you'll find that all 4 shat all over Salford and our fans so please don't try and make them out to be the victims in all this.
Hock - let the team and club down with his continual brain farts. Backed publicly by Koukash through all his misdemeanors.
Rangi - Chose when he wanted to play pretty much and ban last season cost us top 8 place.
Smith & Locke - Well subsequent events pretty much prove what went on with them so talking out of your backside.

Now don't get me wrong, if proven guilty we deserve a FAIR punsihment. We all know that teams have been "manipulating" the cap for years and only Wigan have been done for it so a 20 point penalty would.be unfair and everyone knows it. People on here need to put aside their dislike of Koukash and base their judgments on the facts but they won't.

Okay, maybe I should have written 'the way they thought they were treated...". The point is still valid though, if Koukash had made hidden payments to these players they are hardly going to defend him after the manner in which they left the club (regardless of whose fault the issues were).
I'm not sure how you know teams have been manipulating the cap, unless of course the clubs furnish you with more information about their finances that the RFL obtain? If the allegation is proven and it shows Salford to have deliberately broken the cap through deception (ie not declaring payments made to players through MK's other company) this would be very different to those clubs who have broken the cap in the past, and worthy of a heavier penalty.

Is paying a player two salaries by two different companies owned by the same guy classed as a fact? To me that is deliberately breaching the salary cap and therefore a hefty punishment should be dealt, both as a punishment, but also a deterrent to put other clubs off.

If the RFL bottle it and give out a fine and a couple of points deducted, everyone may as well do it, knowing that if the players they spend the extra cash on gain them two wins that they wouldn't have previously won, then its worth doing.

It is indeed, it came out in Puletua's employment tribunal hearing. He was paid 80k year by Salford but had a contract with a company called EuroMachTech worth a further 48k. No prizes for guessing who owns this company.....
What seems even worse is that it seems this "company" was set up for the sole purpose of paying Salford players secret payments. The company didn't actually exist in "real life" and didn't actually do any business.

And then what? Destroy whatever is being built at Salford and promote a side who can't compete? Seems like a sensible long term plan for the sport.

In response to NT, no I don't have cold hard facts but we all "know" that some of the top clubs must have very creative accountants to have never breached the salary cap with the squads some of them have carried over the course of the SL era. It makes me laugh that fans think Salford are the only team to dish out ridiculously overinflated wages to individuals. Brown envelopes, wives on the payroll etc have been going on for years.

The fact is Salford will be made an example of as they will be seen as the RFL as easy meat and not big enough to take them on. Wigan, however, got the absolute bare minimum as, God forbid, they ever dropped out of SL.

I've been banging on for years that this will be happening. The RFL are incompetent and it's taken Bradford's Chairman telling them what has happened for them to find it two years later.

For me, Salford should be kicked out of Super League. What they've done isn't accidental overspending, it's deliberate and is no doubt still happening now. I've said for years that all this salary cap rorting will come out inevitably as players from the SL era retire and release their autobiographies. The third party company contract is so easy to do, the RFL and their incompetent setup would never find it on their own. The owners of clubs these days have so many business interests that it's incredibly easy to employ a wife on a consultancy basis, or the player themselves. If no one squeals it will not be found.

(All of the above is based on allegations of an unverified nature and do not necessarily represent the views of the artist Saddened!, RLFANS.com or any of it's owners, moderators or demented patrons.)

I can't wait for Koukash's reaction to this. This could potentially see the end of Salford as a club. He will absolutely explode if they are given a significant points deduction.