But the problem is the thought of clubs running their affairs their own way. We tried that and it very nearly killed the sport.
Without a method of limiting what a club can spend on players do we really think clubs will spend money on academies and player development? Without some method of limiting the number of overseas players at a club do we really think clubs will play more British players?

It takes a lot of rules and regulations to run a sport. We have to protect players, especially young players, who may be exploited for instance. So that requires rules and regulations regarding what age they can be signed and in what manner and when they can be played in certain age groups etc.

I agree the RFL appear weak, but the solution, in my opinion, is for the RFL to grow a pair. Ensure they are properly funded and resourced so we can appoint professionals to the relevant roles and enough support staff to assist them.

True. And I'm pretty confident there will be different answers from different clubs too.

I appreciate that having a strong youth setup is an essential path to a successful club, however, I was under the impression this thread related to S.C. misdemeanours.

I was purely speculating that if some clubs are paying above & beyond the agreed thresholds they can employ the cream of the sport which could perpetuate their success.

Oh & thanks for the reference regarding my club & youth systems, people in glass houses & all that.

If this story does have legs, I’m pretty certain my “Whipping Boy” club won’t be in the vanguard.

Absolutely - and I'm not advocating [icomplete[/i anarchy. Just sticking to workable, enforceable rules - and yeah, a bit more freedom for clubs to innovate and/or adapt to their own particular circumstances. The one-size-fits-all 'solutions' of licensing were broadly sensible in principle, but too prescriptive and unrealistic.

Somewhere in between there's a balance to be found.

I personally don't think clubs should spend money on player development - unless they view it as being in their own self-interest. The RFL should run the academy system IMO - with money 'taken' from the SL clubs' TV cash. If you're forcing organizations to do things 'for the greater good' they'll generally do a half-assed job, focusing instead on stuff that helps them more directly. My fear is that RFL academies would be staffed by ex-pros who'd fallen on hard times rather the best and brightest coaches, but that's more of a cultural problem.

As for more British players, for sentimental reasons I'd like to see a decent number of fed-trained players in SL, but I'm dubious about how much protectionism can help in developing quality players. It's always seemed a demand side solution to a supply side problem, to me.

Lot of inverted commas in my post - yuk.

What exactly is the SC supposed to achieve, more teams winning trophies and less clubs going bankrupt was key objectives (I think).

Both have completely failed IMO.

SC drives less investment in the game which ultimately leads to star players leaving the SL. Get rid of it and let investors invest...

Agreed. Everybody knows that we need more money coming into the game. This self imposed policy restricts the amount of money coming in. How stupid can you get?

Just scrap the cap. Get relegated if you go bust (and lose the Sky money associated with the higher division). Let investors invest what they want in the knowledge of the potential risks.

The thing is. That isn't much of a disincentive to investors. Once they are bust they are no longer at the club. Why would they give a fig if it's then relegated or loses sky money? The people to lose out there would be fans and companies who don't get paid because they sky money doesn't come in.

You can argue either way. If 'investors' want a return on their investment, they'd be better served by running the business of the club in such a way as to not go bust, staying in the higher division and getting a return on investment over time via the higher Sky money and associated higher revenues.

I'd rather risk scrapping the cap (along with introducing related penalties for insolvency) than risk sticking with what we have.

If there was no salary cap, can you seriously see Mr Hetherington sending Leeds (and Caddick?) bust by spending way more than they can afford?

but this is true whether or not there are punishments for going bust.

no but again, that is because leeds are a well run business that makes money, has assets, and can continue to do so. I honestly dont think that a penalty for going bust would make the slightest difference.

All owners want their clubs to be a leeds, none of them want them to be a wakefield or bradford. All those at a less financially secure club are trying to make them a financially secure club not to avoid a penalty but because it is good for them to do so.

I would agree that we can't stick with what we apparently have, a paper tiger SC is the worst of both worlds. It has all the negatives of an SC with none of the positives.

i largely agree with this, but would point the problem you mention with licensing was weakness from the RFL. Licensing should have simply provided an environment for clubs to reach the levels they needed but vested interests demanded that these objective criteria were put in place when then created an unnecessary prescriptive environment, where things like 'suitable facilities' became X number of seats, x number undercover etc etc and the time frames put on it left some clubs unstable and focussed on meeting these checkpoints instead of using their stability to create the best business they could be. That was a failure of strength from the RFL


These however i dont think were examples of weaknesses. Both Leeds and Wigan in your examples had relatively strong arguments against what happened. The loans at Leeds were absolutely fine, the issue was the players training at Leeds facilities. Which is a silly thing to be an issue. With Wigan they found a loophole that not only left their actual guilty charge looking a bit unsafe, but it left their penalty unenforceable. I dont think either are examples of where we need more or less regulation, but very good example of where we need better legislation.

I don't think it's ok to rip stupid people off. I don't think they have been ripped off. I think they're morons and more than likely don't really understand the situation/are chancing their arm. For example of the former, we had one player (according to Koukash) who claimed the Club were unfairly docking his pay. In reality they were Child Support payments.

Re: salary cap. The biggest problem with the it is that it tends to cause the quality of the top teams to stagnate rather than raise the standard of the lower teams. We need to focus on ideas to raise the standard of the bottom clubs if we're going to impose a salary cap on the bigger clubs. As ever, the NRL does this better than SL.

2 Leagues of 10
SC's of 2.5 & 1.5 million respectively.
Clear pathway up & down 1 auto promotion.
Reserve sides 2 leagues of 10 & play curtain raiser before each weekly round.