Is there any truth in the rumours of side payments regarding his time at Salford

I'm sure the new Salford oracle who specializes in negativity will be here presently to avail you of all the news.

So we take that as a yes.

Seen the article in the nations favourite 'the sun'. Hope its not true or were screwed.

Wigan bashed the cap to avoid relegation and I think they got a 2 or 4 point deduction. Surely if we have been caught it will be the same for us?

Wigan "broke the spirit of the cap" and the limit at the time was 4 points - it has since been dramatically increased since then. I believe 10 points is now the maximum (and may be higher next year, as iirc it was one of the compromises about bringing in the marquee rule in)

"broke the spirit of the cap"

Does that mean, broke the cap?

Nice way of phrasing it mind, iirc they spent big to get themselves out of trouble.

10 points would be quite a big kick in the nuts. Might as well lose the other games, keep the team fresh and earn the place back in SL from the middle eight. Well that's next year sorted out then.

My understanding is that TP brought this case because he was promised money that he says he has never received.Now i might be missing something here but if he never received any money then what offence have Salford actually committed."Failure to pay an underhand bung in used notes into a foreign bank account" is not an offence i am aware of in the RFL operating rules.

Bad news Salary Cap Offence - Sanctions, 9.1.3 in the case of a Club, the deduction of up to 20 Super League competition points; '"

"Broke the spirit of the cap" translated to "wigan were smarter than the people making the rules at the time, but we weren't great fans of what they did" - they didn't [itechnically[/i break the cap, but they diliberately circumvented it.

similarly, promising players big bonuses for winning mom and individual awards from the club followed by a wink wink nod nod doesn't [itechnically[/i break the cap, but certainly circumvents it.

Side payments in the other hand is simply breaking the cap that would see big numbers punished - as the above post says, it can be up to 20 points - starting 10 games behind is a lot!

An attempt , or 'intent ' is considered enough to constitute a breach .
I'd sort of understand if it was a Sonny Bill or a Paul Gallan they were getting, not a pensionable plodder. .

Puletua was £128k per annum at Saints, they offered him a one-year extension whereas Salford offered him a two-year deal. As we were upto the cap, only £80k of Tony's salary could be put on the cap the other £48k was to made up through a side-payment and paid by EuroMachTech under the guise that it would be for "training and advice on player recruitment".

Last Friday, Koukash and Puletua settled on an undisclosed amount. An RFL representative sat in on the two day tribunal and will investigate whether any operational rules relating to the salary cap have been broken, given the evidence disclosed. If found guilty, it carries a punishment of upto 20 points.

Marwan and his legal team are confident that they haven't done anything wrong.

Who are EuroMachTech? The only defence Salford will have based on this is if they share no common manager, owner or contract.

The rules relating to payments for training and education
(b) costs paid directly by the Club to an educational/vocational training establishment in respect of the Player’s development, provided that such costs are approved in writing by the HSCR (with such approval usually sought prior to commencement of the course in question).
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With regards to your final point, Tony Puletua wasn't selected to play for the Club in a Salary Cap Relevant Match during the Salary Cap Year - or at least not for Salford (in 2015) he wasn't.

Presuming he was registered correctly (and I make that assumption based on the rfls involvement in the mediation) then the above is all that matters...