Quote: SmokeyTA "Then he would be wrong. It's a self serving circular argument that when all the invented justification is stripped away basically says we are run by idiots and the players are going to pay financially for that.
Your basic argument is that well run clubs are only well run because they collude to pay their players less than their free market value, and of they were to have to pay their players their free market value they would immediately become insolvent.
The obvious problem with that argument is that a business which only survives because it under pays it's employees is not a well run business.
As a point of order a modest increase in the SC would not stretch Leeds financial resources at all. Less than 20% of leeds outgoings are player wages.
It is immoral that players bare the responsibility for protecting owners from themselves, it is immoral that leeds can post profits in the hundreds of thousands but Ryan Hall is not allowed to negotiate his salary in a free market.
As for P+R needing an SC that's just nonsense. It does nothing but en tench the status quo. Why on earth should Club x languish in the lower leagues because club Y cannot afford to spend as much? Especially when the limit figure bears no relation to affordability for either.
There is one reason and one reason only the SC exists, to facilitate the exploitation of players by owners, if you cannot afford to pay the free market rate for your players you are operating at a level higher than your business can operate'"
It's not about being run by idiots. Do you really think if there were no salary cap that spending would stay the same? If the players are being under-paid and removing the SC means they can negotiate their full market value then surely you are admitting players wages will increase. So either the likes of Leeds, Wigan & Cas (clubs who've managed to run on what they bring in) increase their spending to compete or they accept they'll be mid-table indefinitely. How is that good for the game? If they increase their spending they're doing the old 80's & 90's trick of spending more than they've got and hoping for an increase in revenue from any success. We all know how well that worked. Wigan and Leeds have only just recovered from it.
That isn't my argument at all. My argument is that players are currently paid their market value. Because clubs can't afford any more. You are suggesting players market values should be inflated by 1 man who's willing to lose a lot of money. That doesn't happen in any other business, which is why sport is different from business and shouldn't be viewed that way.
The players aren't underpaid. They're paid what RL clubs in this country can afford without making huge losses. That isn't underpayment.
Your point of order is incorrect. Leeds make a profit of around £200k per year over the last few years. Even if you leave out the fact that that profit is used to invest in the stadium, an increase of the SC to just £2m would wipe out Leeds profits.
What are you on about with club x & y. The SL SC has no bearing on which team is promoted.
You keep saying it has no bearing on affordability, yet it clearly does. Leeds, Wigan & Cas etc are clubs for which the cap is affordable. For other clubs it's their aim to get to a point where it's affordable. How would increasing players wages help keep clubs afloat?
Ahh now you're getting it. Yes many clubs are operating at a level higher than they can operate. That's why they struggle to pay for everything they need to, including wages. Your solution to this is to increase wages because 1 club can currently pay it. That's madness.
You're conveniently ignoring the point that 1 rich man can massively and significantly affect the sport unlike in football. Man City's owners are the richest people in the world (or very close) and yet they still cannot guarantee victory in any football competition because there is the likes of Man Utd, Arsenal etc who can compete with them. When Man City were taken over they didn't start spending 4-5 times on wages than Man Utd, what their takeover did was take them to a position where they can compete regularly with Man Utd. (Though if you talk to sports finance people they'll tell you it's unhealthy for the sport that player wages are so inflated).
In RL the removal of the SC would mean that Salford would win virtually every competition every year. Because no other club can afford to lose millions per year. Great for Salford fans for a few years. But can you see a similar pattern to what happened not that long ago?
A SC is necessary to prevent 1 man artificially inflating players wages beyond what the sport can afford from its income.
If we had 90-odd clubs and a 20 club SL then I'd probably agree with no SC. But we don't. Any club that goes under is a blow to RL because it means another decade or so of a club that can't effectively compete and can't grow as much as it could've done.
As I said, the SC won't stop badly run clubs from spending more than they earn, but it does ensure well run clubs DONT HAVE TO spend more than they earn.