You cannot sign away your right to legal recourse if the RFL are breaking the law. The courts decision supersedes any and all conditions of RFL membership.

That same clause applies to SC as it would to things like racial and sexual discrimination. By signing that you do not absolve the RFL or the operational rules from adhering to the law.

There is a restraint on the person in both principle and practice. It does stop a player earning his market worth. If it didn't it would exist and certainly wouldn't be called a salary cap. You can't argue that it doesn't stop a player earning x amount just a club offering x amount because they amount to the same thing. If a club cannot offer x amount a player cannot earn it.

The defence of it wouldn't be that it wasn't a restraint of trade but that it was a reasonable one based on its effect on the market, players and fans, that it was procompetititve. A strong argument in theory can be made in favour of the SC on those basis. In practice, in RL, with our recent history, I think it would be a difficult one to make.

That's not true. You can sign away rights to legal recourse, an obvious example being COT3 settlement agreements between employers and employees. After an employee signs a COT3 they waive all rights to any further legal claims.

Similarly, the RFL is not compelled to accept Salford as a member. They have no legal right to membership of the RFL and can be expelled. People forget that the RFL isn't just the people at Red Hall, it is actually a collective of member clubs and by suing Salford would essentially be suing their fellow member clubs.

said employer is still bound by the law at all stages. If part of the process of the COT3 is unlawful it can be challenged.

Salford are a member. They have a contract with the RFL that forms the basis of their membership. They cannot have that membership withdrawn without good reason. Not breaking the law like the RFL wanted them to is not good reason

The salary cap in my view indisputably restricts both competition, and free movement of workers. So, would be held unlawful under EU law unless it can be justified. That in turn would depend on whether the salary cap rules are necessary to achieve a legitimate aim under EU law.

Therein would lie the argument.

If the aim of the SC was to improve competitive balance, then I think there would be some prospect of it being upheld. But the actual aim of the SC is, in a nutshell, mainly to stop clubs overspending and going bust (because it is directly linked to income) . Would that pass muster? .


It is arguable that it could, but ultimately IMHO the argument would be lost, as there are just too many obstacles to jump before the ECJ would make such a finding.

If you can get hold of it, do read a very good article titled "[iThe Problem With Salary Caps Under European Union Law" by Johan Lindholm, which puts lots of flesh on these and other relevant arguments, and contains hundreds of references and authorities.

I agree pretty much entirely. It's not that a Salary Cap per se cannot be justified. I just don't think ours would be.

I'll keep a look out for it

LOL @ thinking the cap is a restraint of trade. There's a reason sports AROUND THE WORLD use them, if they weren't legal they'd have been picked apart decades ago.

Unless you can provide examples of when a player has literally been unable to play RL in this country due to no teams having the available salary cap space made available to teams by the RFL? If you can't then there's your answer to restraint of trade being a thing.

Lol indeed.

I take it you have no examples (with sources) of a Rugby League players ability to apply his trade in the UK being hindered by the salary cap then?

Every single player to have played for the last 15 years. Source. Being able to understand what the word cap means

So no, you don't have any examples.

Not one single player has been unable to apply his trade as a Rugby League player in the UK due to a salary cap being in place.

The companies have decided what employees are worth, the employees are happy with what they earn...that means the market is in the right place.

Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's wrong.

Now I'm done with you because you just like to argue in circles and bore people out of threads, take the L and move on.

You are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than this hissy fit to convince anyone a salary cap is not a cap on salaries.

If the companies had decided what employees are worth and employees were happy with that Puletua wouldn't have gone to court and Koukash wouldn't have broken the cap. That is self evident. The rest of your nonsense is just nonsense.

That's rubbish !

If the rumours are to be believed, a player (or players) were earning a far higher salary with their previous club(s) than the salary offered by their new employer and the difference was allegedly being made up by a third party company.

IF this is indeed the case, the club in question would have clearly and deliberately broken the S/C rules and that the parties involved knew exactly what they were doing in order to pay the player more money and abuse the system.

IF he was worth the alleged gross figure, he could have been paid this money in salary from the club and they would need to manage their squad spend differently in order to pay the player this amount.

Nobody is preventing any player from earning a living.

And lets remember why the cap was put in place and that we are "copying" the Aussie example (albeit at a lower level), in theory to prevent clubs overspending on wages,.

Although we can all argue the pro's and cons of the cap, it certainly hasn't been kept a secret and ALL clubs enter their player negotiations knowing the rules in advance and if they chose to break the rules, they should be reprimanded.

It appears that Dr K wants to test both the system and the RFL's ability to impose it but, this is just a wealthy owner flexing his muscles and IF this case is proven, there can be little sympathy for any penalty that they suffer as a consequence.

IF he didn't like the deal, he should have kept clear and if he believes that other clubs are doing the same, then now may be a good time for him to speak up

I don't think it's black and white regarding any legal action regarding the SC.

There's no restriction or cap on what individdual players earn, only on what the business can spend on it's playing staff. Two different things entirely.


There's restrictions in all sports whether it be overseas quotas (which IMO sports governing bodies would have much more of an issue enforcing legally than a SC) and I cant recall many legal challenges by clubs on these sorts of rules.

End of day there aren't many (if any) legal experts on here and even if they were, If they were to say whether a SC is legal or not, they wouldn't necessarily be right. Its for the courts to decide.If it gets that far.

I personally think the SC should be abolished however.

May I suggest that you read the article I mentioned. Then at least you'd gain a basic understanding of what we're talking about. I'm no expert on EU law, even if I have a degree which included a module in EU law, but I do have an understanding of the complex issues of EU law which come into play regarding salary caps, and you, with respect, clearly don't.