Which one of you is right ?


By Gareth Walker

12:01AM BST 27 Jul 2007





Castleford Tigers are consulting their legal advisors after describing Wigan's breach of last season's salary cap as "one of the biggest injustices in the history of the sport".


Wigan were docked four points and ordered to pay costs on Wednesday after an independent tribunal ruled that they exceeded the 2006 salary cap by £222,314. That season the Warriors finished three points above Castleford, who were relegated to National League One.


The Tigers publicly aired their concerns to the Rugby Football League about Wigan's spending midway through last year, when they recruited Great Britain prop Stuart Fielden and outbid Castleford for Australian halfback Michael Dobson.


"The loss to Castleford is impossible to quantify," Richard Wright, the Castleford chief executive, said. "Financially the loss of £800,000 from TV rights was only the starting point. Players had to leave the club and others had to accept pay cuts. Even worse is the effect on the club itself and our fans. Yet this injustice could have been avoided."


It seems that one of you has a selective memory ?

What's your point? Which part of my post was confusing?

If the maximum penalty for breaching the salary cap is 20 points, would that not mean Salford face a 40 point deduction if they breached the cap in two seasons as it might be considered two separate offences?

If I get caught speeding on a Monday, I can't just do the same on Tuesday and expect it to be treated as part of Monday's offence, even if I don't receive the paperwork from Monday's offence until Wednesday.

I would guess he means that the two points they were deducted in 2006 would have been deducted in 2005 instead, meaning they would have finished five points clear of Cas before any points deduction so the four points would have made no difference regarding Cas going down.

True, however it's the nature of the breach that's in question.

When Saints, Bradford and Halifax all breached in the same year, that was down to poorly worded rules regarding 3rd party payments and player image rights. Because the RFL were partly to blame for the breach due to poor wording of the rules the clubs ended up with just 2 point deductions.

If Salford have two sets of books and have therefore deliberately set out to not only breach the cap but to smash it into a million pieces, then the RFL have to hit them with the most severe penalty that they can. Also, Bradford and Halifax could take some form of legal action as had Salford been penalised during the season they committed the offences (2015) then Salford would have finished bottom of the middle 8's and the million pound game would have been at Odsal between the two of them. Go one further, if Salford were doing this back in 2014 then Bradford have even more reason to be aggrieved as they'd not have been relegated.

Still in that African River regards cheating I see.

I agree re the severity. This isn't like other cases in British RL and the only comparative example I can think of is the Melbourne case, which ended with large fines, large points deductions, club officials banned and some were even looking at criminal charges at one point.
I'm not sure re Bradford & Halifax taking legal advice. They'd have to prove the RFL were negligent in not uncovering the alleged deception before the end of the 2015 season. That would seem doubtful since all this came out with the Tony Puletua case.

If proved, this is THE most serious breach of operational rules as I can remember. I can't see what other case would warrant the maximum penalty so it has to be the full 20 points for me. As I've said previously, with the new system, give them a 15 point penalty for the regular season and a 5 point penalty in the 8's.

I know that it seems logical but, would the operational rules within SL allow for a deduction to be split 15 + 5.
If not, this in itself would be open to a legal challenge from Salford (or any other club found to be deliberately breaking the cap).

I would think that it would be a 20 point deduction for the season so that when the split occurred and remaining point deduction was carried over.

It seems to be the press that have decided the maximum penalty will be 20 points.
However, that has not come from the RFL.
The RFL statement says they have issues charges. Note the plural - more than one charge.
Each charge has a maximum penalty of 20 points, so they could be facing more than that. It could be that breaching the cap in two seasons has led to two charges, and therefore the maximum total penalty will be 40 points.
It could be that there is a separate charge for each player they have paid secretly (as each would be a separate offence), so it could be significantly higher than that.
Or it could be that they are found not guilty...

Wouldn't surprise me to see Koukash charged over his Twitter comments in the last 24 hours too. One abusinve tweet that wouldn't get past the swear filter on here and one saying he hates the RFL. He really is a fool.

is there something in the operational rules of the RFL that a club which takes legal action against the RFL has their membership of the RFL suspended for the duration of the legal action? Or is that just an urban myth?

Oh dear. This won't help him :- https://twitter.com/drmarwanK/status/706241402481602561

Oh dear. This won't help him :- https://twitter.com/drmarwanK/status/706241402481602561

Assuming that they were in the "qualifiers" exactly how would the deduction be "carried over", everyone starts level in the Middle 8.

If Koukash is that desperate to spend more money on Salford why doesn't he actually fund the Salford academy instead of going cap in hand to the fans and asking them to fund it?

Shows he still hasn't changed. Chasing instant success at all costs at the expense of building long term.

is Marwan getting a bit annoyed that Beaumont at Leigh seems to be taking his prize cock award off him?