The points system could still be abused.

Lets say that the England coach had strong alegiances to a particular club, and if a player earns an international call up he gets a higher points rating.

We might then see, some players promoted early to disadvantage a rival club, or alternatively other players held back from international competition to help the favoured club.

The cap is needed for two reasons too encourage competition and to stop and salry race to bankrupty.

Footballs premiership is a fine example of the free market in operation. Portsmouth and Hull are as good as financially ruined. Meanwhile the premiership is bland competition where the winners are known before the season started. It has become a sport were the cheque bookrules, rather than good coaching and player development.

i think thats a fairly paranoid assumption.

And one that can also be abused under this system, most players have international recognition bonus' written into their contract, we dont see the same happening with SC now.

Also if you really were that scared about it put a cap on the amount of points a club can accumulate through England/GB recognition. If a club brought through 10 players of GB quality i would be happy to see them rewarded for doing so

At first glance it seems reasonable but might it lead to a situation where players offered a representative position are "bribed" by their clubs not to take it? It could be damaging to the international game, maybe?

I’ve never been a fan of the salary cap, and I’ve always thought it to be unworkable. I agree with the principle and aims of its introduction but, if abused by some clubs, it is potentially worse than having a free market, Premiership football system in place.

Damian Irvine’s system, on the face of it, seems a little more open and unfudgeable. If the points system is both rigorous and fair, we can all actually monitor the system ourselves.

There are areas that would need working out, but Damian Irvine’s idea has got to be worth a shot.

.....but he's right about the wendyball 'premiership'. Crazy free-for-alls will end up like this all the quicker in a game like RL where there is a lot less money and far fewer bored billionaires ready to buy some glory with their spare cash.

why would they? Why would a club chairman spend a huge amount more money on a player other clubs just wouldnt want to spend the money on?

Chairmen arent stupid, you dont get to be rich by paying out money you dont need to. With the points system you couldnt get a team full of superstars so why would you bother paying average players more money just because there isnt a rule to say you cant?

what the points system would mean is that Leeds could have offered Lee Smith more money to stay at leeds (which is clearly a good thing, stopping us losing young talent to union) but Warrington couldnt try to buy success by offering more than Leeds (because Smith would count more on Warringtons cap than Leeds)

Its a very very paranoid mindset that would think this would result in huge amounts more money going to players, because it wouldnt

the Wendyball 'premiership' is at least as competitive, if not more so than Super League

The problem with the point's system, in the UK at least, is that virtually no club in SL are making a profit. The cap itself was more away to stop the lower clubs spending themselves out of business rather than to level out the field. If you remove the financial restriction you may cause the game more harm than good.

should clubs who cant be trusted not to spend more than they have, have a place in a franchised super league? especially when they dont need to over spend to put out a competitive squad as the point system would mean clubs couldnt hoard players and there would always be players of sufficient quality that couldnt find a place elsewhere

Erm, where have you been the last 115 years or so? Loads of clubs have gone to the wall spending money they didn't have on players that weren't worth it.

if only it were so simple and we could be so naive, it would be easy

This system would not work in SL or for NZ.
NZ Warriors, Catalans and Crusaders would have a squad made up of rep players as any French or Welsh players make the national squad and more NZ Warriors would be involved in their national side than you would expect from other NRL sides.
Possibly a reverse points system for Rep players of developing countries, or Expansion countries having a discount on their rep players.

though this would be countered by the fact that these players these clubs brought through to international representation would be discounted as developed players


i would think this was a good idea anyway

As Roofaldo said the Salary Cap was put into place to save clubs from themselves to prevent them spending more than they could to compete and going to the wall. It's just that since then the RFL and SKY have chosen to focus on the secondary effect (a by-product in reality) of evening the competition so most people have forgotten the real reason that the SC exists.

While the points system would mean clubs couldn't hoard the top players it does not mean that the other clubs could afford to take those discarded players. For sake of example :- Harlequins and Salford make enquiries about a (non-rep) centre at Leeds but on finding out his salary demands cannot afford him due to their finances (no cap limit added to Leeds much larger turnover means they can price out most other clubs by paying larger average salaries without risking meltdown). Said centre gains international caps and as a result Leeds cannot keep him due to the points increase. He has to go, Quins and Salford have the points to spare but know that they cannot afford his salary (and will face financial ruin if they buy him) so he ends up going to Warrington who can afford his wage and they offload two fringe players to get under the points. The fringe players end up at Quins and Salford. Top player still goes to a bigger club and the poorer clubs feed off the scraps.

You cannot expect any player to take a pay cut simply because the clubs that can afford his points cannot meet his current wage. To attempt to compete and without the restraints of a cash cap clubs like Salford and Quins would be forced to spend more than they could afford and risk folding. Players like the centre in my example would be more likely to end up going to RU as the only RL clubs that were rich enough to pay their salary would not be able to employ them due to the points system. Such players would then have only two options take a (pretty much enforced) pay cut or cross codes and get their current wage.

yet the SC has no relevance to how much a club can afford to pay, it is much higher than some, much lower than others.

That's true, but these teams might still be disadvantaged. Say Catalans bring a player through to represent France at an early age and then for one reason or another the player is no longer needed (or wanted), perhaps a new coach and new systems or loss of form etc. Would that player be more difficult for Catalans to move on because he would be more expensive to other clubs? Might they be stuck with him?