Well do we have fantastic facilities throughout the league? Are all our clubs sustainable? If our business infrastructure is so good now, why do we have less to spend?

Also, why is it the players job to subsidise these things through lower earnings? Aren't these things the responsibility of the owners?

Their statements. Anyone else's speculation is worthless.

I agree. Let's scrap the cap and go back to the healthy state it win through most of the 90s, where one club through its spending power was able to pretty much rule the roost and everyone else was competing for second. What a glorious golden era that was.

I mean, it's not like it did any long term damage to that dominant club, after all.

Can anyone confirm if this is or is not now in the salary cap? I think I read it somewhere but cannot find where.

If so then Wigan can sign Sam Tomkins or Saints sign James Graham on say £1M a year if they can afford it.

Why that era and not the 70 ' when we were world champions? We largely didn't have a salary cap for the majority of our history so why is the pre salary cap era solely defined by a period of Wigan dominance that had been over 5 years before the advent of the SC

Also, and I'm yet to see anyone even attempt an answer to this. Why is it the players responsibility to do without to protect the owners of clubs from themselves?

They weren't brought in. For what I am sure are unfathomable reasons people who financially benefit from paying wages as low as possible did not vote for the possibility of higher wages.

We didn't have substitutes for most of our history. We didn't have the one-point drop goal or the four-point try for most of our history. It doesn't stop their introduction being a good idea. The need for a salary cap came about, IMO in part at least, because of what Wigan had done in spending money they didn't have to try and protect their dominance. Hence the relevance.

How are the players "doing without"? They have the same right to go seek alternative, better-paid employment elsewhere that any employee has. What are they being deprived of exactly? Who is forcing them with a gun to their head to stay in rugby league and "do without"?

The removal of the correlation between the salary cap and turnover was the end of it being about saving the clubs from themselves. It's about levelling the playing field, in the same way that salary caps in the NFL/NBA/A-League etc are. It stops Simon Moran, or Marwan Koukash, or Russell Crowe going out and spending twice as much as anyone else on players in an attempt to buy success. If you think that success in sport should be determined by how wealthy your owner is, until it all becomes a race to attract a sugar daddy in the way the Premier League has become, then good for you.

but that had already ended by the time the SC was brought in. 5 he SC didn't end Wigan dominance. It had already ended and been over for years.
I find it amazing the mental gymnastics some will do to argue that a salary cap, by definition a cap on salaries, when the very reason it exists solely to keep wages low, does not disadvantage players. It is unarguable that players wages are lower because of the SC. How are they being disadvantaged? Their wages are lower.


There are better playing field levellers than the SC. I have no problem with us levelling the playing field. I think it's a good thing. I think an SC is a godawful attempt at it.

I'm obviously not going to change your opinion on the matter, so I'm not going to try.

However, the home grown cap cap wasn't voted on by "the financially benefitting" as it was not voted on at all. The ongoing conversations and debate about the marquee signing rule simply pushed the cap cap out of the itinerary. I've not heard anything about it since about July.

Interestingly, according to the policy review at the end of last year the home grown cap cap was to come in and replace the elite training squad allowance. The elite training squad allowance wording was changed in the rules, stating it was applicable in the 2011 -2014 seasons only. So it might not be far away.

I've just gone onto the operational rules to find the exact wording and the entire salary cap section has been taken down ... Updates or less open approach?

To be honest I'd take it further. As long as the club can show they interviewed other people and appointed the family member in a fair and proper manner they should be able to do whatever job they want them to.

I'm not to worried about that, but say Marwan signs up Jonathan Thurston. Perhaps £25K a year rolling contract on Salford's books, but gets sponsored with a £400K contract by Dr.MarwanK. If the Doctor decides to stop funding players, or goes bust, or whatever, then the worst thing that happens to Salford is that they lose a player.

Who loses?

"we were going to give you a pay rise but when I was colluding with our competitors to make sure we didn't give you too much of a pay rise we decided to put a time limit on those discussions. Unfortunately we spent so long discussing then deciding not to offer one of you you're market worth, we didn't even get a chance to discuss giving some of you closer to your market worth in certain circumstances so sadly my hands are tied, I have to continue to pay you less than your market worth."

You would be happy at the end of that conversation with your boss wouldn't you? You would think that entirely reasonable wouldn't you?

Hmm that's convenient isn't it.

We could have allowed clubs to spend what they want but limit the structure of their squad as well as making sure they invested in things like youth development and their facilities and made their being a well run business a condition of their participation in the competition. Apparently jeopardy was the most important thing possible though so we scrapped that idea.

Quote: SmokeyTA ""we were going to give you a pay rise but when I was colluding with our competitors to make sure we didn't give you too much of a pay rise we decided to put a time limit on those discussions. Unfortunately we spent so long discussing then deciding not to offer one of you you're market worth, we didn't even get a chance to discuss giving some of you closer to your market worth in certain circumstances so sadly my hands are tied, I have to continue to pay you less than your market worth." You would be happy at the end of that conversation with your boss wouldn't you? You would think that entirely reasonable wouldn't you? Hmm that's convenient isn't it.'" when did the league clubs sit down with the nrl and union to fix prices? Oh, and who says that the vast majority of players in SL arent getting their market value? I think thats a fallacy in itself. You can look for yourself: www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/i ... section=E1 Im not sure what its convenient for but there you go...

Quote: SmokeyTA ""we were going to give you a pay rise but when I was colluding with our competitors to make sure we didn't give you too much of a pay rise we decided to put a time limit on those discussions. Unfortunately we spent so long discussing then deciding not to offer one of you you're market worth, we didn't even get a chance to discuss giving some of you closer to your market worth in certain circumstances so sadly my hands are tied, I have to continue to pay you less than your market worth." You would be happy at the end of that conversation with your boss wouldn't you? You would think that entirely reasonable wouldn't you? Hmm that's convenient isn't it.'" when did the league clubs sit down with the nrl and union to fix prices? Oh, and who says that the vast majority of players in SL arent getting their market value? I think thats a fallacy in itself. You can look for yourself: www.therfl.co.uk/the-rfl/rules/i ... section=E1 Im not sure what its convenient for but there you go...