Yeah £15k, really splashing it about aren't we...

Cheating gets. Biggest name in RL they promote themselves as. hmmm repeated cheating is all they excel in.

Now I'm all for Wigan getting the worst possible treatment, and I must say, it made me chuckle when I was first reading the RFL statement this morning. Any bad news for Wigan is generally good news to me as a Leeds fan.

But jeez, it's £14k - feels like a massive over reaction from the RFL to me. I'd envisage they'll get their points back on appeal, and rightly so really. I can only think their previous indiscretions and Lennegan being a bit of a throbber have played against them.

As others have stated, the real shame is that this will now take the headlines, when both Super league and the club's alongside the RLWC team seem to have done a lot better than ever with their marketing in this last couple of weeks.

Feels like a massive own goal from the RFL in terms of timing, their apparent bodging of their own procedures and the over the top punishment, and a bit of an amateurish mess up by Wigan (and attempt to hide it). Sorry state of affairs when everything was building nicely for the season launch.

To all the people saying it's 'only' £15,000 so they should get the points back. what's the point in having a salary cap at all then?

Everyone has the same cap, it's fixed. Going over it is cheating. Every other team in Super League stuck to it, so getting away with it would send completely the wrong message.

They say it's because of flights and agents, but I could equally argue that the £15,000 they used for that was actually in the first million spent, and this overspend was Sam Tomkins wages - it's a pot of cash that all player costs come out of and once you go over that you don't get to be the ones who define how or why.

Leeds had an injury crisis last year, why didn't we just go £15,000 over the cap to get someone in on a short term deal? Apparently having injuries is a good enough excuse to cheat and according to some shouldn't come with any real consequences.

I find Cas getting salary cap relief and then not using for what it's for more of cheating scandal then a systematic error.

So what if someone goes £1 over the salary cap? 2 point deduction?

Why not? There's really no excuse for breaching something that has a finite barrier. Maybe the punishment should be 1 point deducted for every £5,000 (or part thereof) over the cap. Leeds have managed to be the most successful team in Superleague without breaching the cap once, so it's not like staying within it is impossible.

Yes?

However the previous two salary cap breaches took place when Dave Whelan and Maurice Lindsay were in charge.

Nah, the player we are after just isn't available yet.

I think a few people are forgetting that the decision to deduct 2 points didn't come from the RFL - it was an independent panel's decision.
Nothing to do with Lenner's failed attempt at a break-away or his constant pulling-down of the governing body.
There is one reason and one reason only why Wigan have this deduction - form.

It’s not an error. The salary cap regulations are easily available and checked in less than 5 mins on the RFL website. It specifically states payments made to agents are included.

It wasn’t an error. It was an attempt to conceal payments.

Correct - and that is where Wigan's appeal against the deduction will fail.

Ian Lenagan, said: “Throughout this process, Wigan has been fully cooperative and transparent with no suggestion of concealment or deception and acceptance formally of the breach."

Apart from the last bit making no sense whatsoever, honest Ian suggests otherwise.

He's right though, no one has said anything about concealment or deception, except for a few experts on here. If a club really wanted to hide a 14k payment in a 1.85 million salary cap I'm sure they could.

Wigan have tried (and failed) to prove that the player's agent in question worked for them and the payment should not count toward the cap.

The RFL have. They weren’t declared payments. It was only when an audit was done that they came to light and then Wigan tried to deny they were relevant.

There is no reason whatsoever to not declare those payments other than to hide them. As I said, the regulations are incredibly easily looked up.

Yet the Wigan club denies that. Why would they lie?

In a world of 'fake news' can't we at least pretend that it was a £14k bung to get a World Cup game that was exposed, hence Wigan missing out yesterday and getting a points deduction today.

That's far more entertaining than the truth I'm sure.

Are you seriously asking why a guilty party would try to mitigate their behaviour?

Let’s turn the question around. Why would the RFL lie?

Don’t tell me. The RFL hate Wigan...

So are some of the responses from rival fans.



I figured it was more along the lines of 'We paid for X fees in a different currency and the exchange rate used wasn't the one we thought would be used'.

£5000 and 2 points not much of a deterrent really

doesn't surprise me that Wigan have been caught with their pants down again

Because they are Wigan.

As a Wakefield fan I look forward to the day when we can get near enough to the Salary cap to actually break it.