For debate:

Generating the revenues required to prevent any decent salary cap (RU cap who are 'stealing' players is £4.6m) being ruinous is probably at the crux of the issue. If the cap should not exceed 50% of revenues (sensible?), then generating £8m p.a. from a city catchment the size of Leeds or Bradford is feasible; even generating those revenue levels from half of Hull (see, I do like you both!) or towns the size of Wigan, Warrington, Huddersfield etc shouldn't be beyond decent marketing men. However, trying to draw that amount of money from the people & business' around Castleford & Widnes, (and if you dig deeper, Leigh, Featherstone, Dewsbury etc.) would almost certainly mean encroaching on the catchments of larger neighbours .... which would also defeat the object of bringing more money into the league as a whole!

Sorry, and a lot of fans will be sticking their fingers in their ears and refusing to listen to this, but if our game is to grow big enough to stop it's stars (and new talent) from going elsewhere, then maybe the SL franchise system should be looking more at potential catchment area than history. The alternative is to hold back those clubs that have the potential to increase revenues so they don't grow too fast for the 'smaller' clubs.

If the RFL simply enforced a salary cap to 50% of current revenues, then the clubs served by smaller catchments (and hence smaller potential revenues) would quickly be reduced to 'feeder' status anyway.

So the question is; do we let 6 to 8 clubs grow and put effort into encouraging larger areas (South Yorkshire, Midlands, North Lancs/Cumbria) to put forward teams to fill the gaps, letting smaller clubs fall by the wayside, or do we accept we are already at the maximum potential that allows all current clubs to survive?

The problem with a % cap is that it entrenches the difference between the haves and have nots. Leeds turnover nigh on £13m a year, a club like Wakefield is probably about the £4m mark. We would be left with a situation (if 50%) leeds can spend £6.5m and Wakefield only £2m, meaning Leeds will have a much better team, growing their fan base and turnover, Wakefield will be stuck with a relatively small, poor squad which they cant invest in, the lose fans, shrink their fanbase and it becomes a vicious cycle.

What we need to do is to accept that we cant be so prescriptive. A team like Wakefield, getting ready to move into a new stadium would probably benefit from the increase in visibility from a big name signing to start the new era, London might grab more attention from spending £400k a year on Quade Cooper than spending that £400k advertising in a crowded London marketplace, our players are our raw materials and the game the product. Skimping on the raw materials effects the quality of your product. We cant keep cutting the amount of investment in raw materials, across the board, forever, which is what we have done for the last decade.

Clubs require different things, they aren’t all the same, and aren’t all in the same position. We need to give a level of independence so that the businessmen who own these clubs can run them as businesses. The mechanism that we should look for is one which prevents run away wage inflation, that prevents stockpiling of talent, has a semblance of talent distribution but allows the game to progress and clubs which are well run to build lasting success, and it allows clubs to invest when necessary, to use the talent our game has to sell it and preferably it would also be simple, clear and transparent aswell.

The current system does none of those things. A 50% solution wouldn’t either.

yep because that has worked so well in the past! Even with some sort of control on these "businessmen" 80% of then can't balance the books.

I am in favour of a marquee signing outside of the salary cap for those that can afford it but beyond that leave as is, it's not like the richer clubs are abiding by it anyway!

Why do you insist on making up figures?

These are businessmen, some with massive net worths, quite a few were the RL club is a tiny fraction of their businesses, Simon Moran, Paul Caddick, Ian Leneghan their net worth dwarfes the size of their RL club, in fact it probably dwarfes the size of all UK RL clubs added together, these aren’t people who need babysitting. Give them the aims and objectives of the league and let them get on with it.

To be fair Smokey, I think you started the making up of figures game.

Note: one of my rules (see above) is:-

- "2. All clubs to submit audited accounts made up to 31 December each year to the RFL by the following 30 June. Failure to do this = 6 points deduction"

Do this, and nobody has to make up any figures.

Note also, that many clubs currently fail to meet the statutory deadline to file their Annual Accounts with Companies House. It's such a small penalty. Also, non-UK clubs in the European Super League now and in the future may not be UK companies and so do not have to file with Companies House.

My figures were hypothetical figures to illustrate a point, they aren’t central to the point. JB’s figures are his point, and if they aren’t correct then he isn’t making a point. There is a huge difference.

The salary cap will remain in place until a better ways of running the game are found. It will only be replaced by something better which will produce better results.
We need to move from a restriction based system to one which encourages growth and builds in the need for each club to provide the bulk of its squad from its own resouces.
A system which will prevent lazy rich clubs from cherry picking the best talent from other clubs' academy squads as well as bringing in the best talent from lower placed SL and Championship clubs, both in massive numbers. There are clubs around where their youth development in schools is minimal but have the most expensive squads in the league.
Clubs like Wakefield, Castleford and Featherstone have a wonderful schools and amateur clubs in their area but the best talent is plundered by richer clubs who can afford to take those players at will rather than produce their own.
Look at the England squad and England Lions squad and see how lads come from Cas Panthers, Normanton Knights and Fev Lions then see how many play for Cas, Wakey and Fev.
We need a system that will allow those clubs to keep their own and make richer clubs develop their players through from schools, amateur clubs etc. It can be done and the system that could do it is very simple.
Will the RFL/SL adopt it? No chance!

Again, keep it simple.

The governing body just needs to set a clear rule (with a sensible top number) as to how many players any one club can register.

I would go with the 50% income rule (or whatever value is deemed sustainable) This both encourages building facilities and not players, and rewards successful clubs

The current cap does neither.

10 out of 14 clubs are losing money, some significantly so. Why are these great businessmen as you seem to think they must be not turning around the fortunes of the clubs to make them profitable? We have only one control in place to A) stop the league becoming a 2-3 horse race and B) Stop clubs killing themselves, and you want to take it away so 1 or 2 rich guys can throw money at some Union numpty?

By what measure?

Average attendances for 'regular season' (league) games .... over 63,000 per game!

Using the same measure with similar leagues to ours it gets interesting:

SL gets about 10,500 per game; NRL gets 17,000, so you'd think they'd have c70% more spending power - they have 100% more....but Aviva Prem (Union) average is only 12,000, yet their salary cap is near 300% of ours .... and this is where the RFL should hang it's head in shame re marketing our game.

Two codes, similar fan base, similar TV viewing figures, both very regionally biased (check the locations of RFU Prem teams - only Sale are north of Birmingham!), yet one has generated enough money to give annual handouts to each club the size of our clubs total revenues!

Firstly, 10 of 14 isnt 80%. Secondly, operating at a profit isn’t always the aim, of all companies, at the same time. it is pretty naïve to look at profitability as the only measure of financial health.

St Helens don’t operate at a profit, they have posted some results which in isolation look pretty bad. But they have a huge shiny new asset which not only increases the chances of profitability for future years, but is a big shiny asset on the balance sheet on its own. Leeds as well, don’t look to post huge profits, with ‘management fees’ and loans to Carnegie often bring down the amount they show as ‘profit’. I have no doubt other clubs will have similar set ups. So again, it is pretty naïve to look at profitability as the only measure of financial health.

St Helens don’t operate at a profit, they have posted some results which in isolation look pretty bad. But they have a huge shiny new asset which not only increases the chances of profitability for future years, but is a big shiny asset on the balance sheet on its own. Leeds as well, don’t look to post huge profits, with ‘management fees’ and loans to Carnegie often bring down the amount they show as ‘profit’. I have no doubt other clubs will have similar set ups. So again, it is pretty naïve to look at profitability as the only measure of financial health.

Considering the salary cap has done neither of those things, it is pretty ridiculous to keep it in place, it hasn’t broken the stranglehold of the big clubs. Its just that one of them has been run poorly, and we have had three more ‘rich guys’ join the party. I find it strange that you argue so much on the financial prudence needed and how all clubs need to only spend what they have because were that the case, your club wouldn’t be in SL.