Totally agree. MK needs to throw other clubs under the bus. It might delay the outcome of the investigation, but if other clubs are also docked points it could really help us out.

I agree with the sentiment, but not the justification; if the cap is routinely being broken (which I strongly suspect is the case) by similar means to those allegedly employed by Salford, and Mr Koukash has evidence of that, he should inform the RFL. It could be argued that he should have done so at the time he made those comments, as it's never a good look when someone blows the whistle on others for historical breaches of a rule they've just been caught breaking themselves, but either way - if clubs are playing fast and loose with the SC, it should be busted wide open - for the sake of fairness though, rather than to delay the Salford case.

I don’t think how the cap has been broken matters, but how much it was broken by. I can only assume previous punishments reflects how much over the cap those clubs were. Following the Tony Puletua tribunal, it became public knowledge that only £80k of TP’s £120k annual salary was on the cap with the additional £40k made up through a separate payment via Marwan Koukash’s EuroMachTech company.

It’s worth acknowledging that whilst this payment was made in 2014, it wasn’t made in 2015 (Tony Puletua didn’t play for Salford that year) which was the root cause of the tribunal. Therefore have we broken the cap in 2015, if payment wasnt made? I guess that is up to MK’s legal experts to prove/disprove.

In summary, best case is we’ve cheated the cap by £40k, worst case is £80k (depending how 2015 is viewed). That doesn’t seem like much.

With regards to other clubs breaking the cap and Koukash “throwing them under the bus” he would have to have some pretty hard evidence to prove it, otherwise he could be on the end of a number of libel claims.

How do you know it was not paid in 2015? Salford were still paying part of his disclosed salary, Dr K publicly said this, even when he was playing at HKR. In view of the high profile signings made by Salford do you think Tony P would be the only one on two contracts?

I think there have been significant changes in RFL salary cap rules. This was in part due to earlier punishments being seen as derisory. Now the punishments are more significant and the RFL board have greater discretion re the way they deal with clubs. The way the cap is now monitored leaves less wriggle room for 'oversights and honest mistakes'.

It is conjecture but it is possible that other players have been paid via Euromatech or other companies. If so these payments may not be relevant for an Employment Tribunal but highly relevant re salary cap considerations. Furthermore there are likely to be rules about the disclosure of player payments - even if the salary cap was not being breached.

Until the charges are made public - they may never be?- we do not know if they relate to one or many players and whether they extend beyond the salary cap.

I am pretty sure Dr K and the club will have a rigorous defence and their record to date on player related matters suggests the result of the current case is not a 'done deal'.

Pretty sure MK won't have any actual evidence on other clubs. As no-one else has been stupid enough to announce they were going to break the rules, broken the rules, spent two years antagonising the authority who create and enforce the rules, got caught breaking the rules (through antagonising the people required to keep schtum about the breaking of the rules) then decided to further antagonise the authority who are going to punish the rule breaking, I think it's safe to assume that everyone else will have made sure their tracks were covered.

You could probably be quite confident that Koukash has paid other players via EuroMachTech, but proving it would be impossible. You'd need a player like Tony Puletua, to be willing to present the evidence and go to tribunal over it and assuming the other players who had these agreements have been paid that is never going to happen, because if they did fancy dropping Koukash in the sh*t, the tax man would be on them like a tonne of bricks.

I still don't fully understand this. So if a player signs a contract with a club for X amount of pounds per year. Then in his spare time decides to do a bit of extra work.(promotional work, school visits, night club bouncer etc)As long as he declares it to HMRC , what is wrong with that. If TP was paid 80000 from Salford ,and 40000 from elsewhere , as long as he had to do some work for the extra , and not just given it.Or are the RFL saying your SL contract must be your only income?If so , isn't that restriction of trade. I'm no expert.

The issue isn't the other £40'000, but where it comes from. Allegedly in this case it's from another company owned by MK, which isn't allowed as it would render the salary cap meaningless.

Very well put!

The issue isn't the other £40'000, but where it comes from. Allegedly in this case it's from another company owned by MK, which isn't allowed as it would render the salary cap meaningless.
That's the point.. Is the player not allowed to earn any extra money from any company owned or partly owned by the Chairman of the club or any of his family or relatives, or any director or any relative of a board etc .

Just googled the Wigan salary cap breach from 2007, they exceeded the then £1.65m cap by £220k and received a 4 point deduction. Surely a precedent has been set with regards to punishment? If we receive anything over and above that, you would have to fancy any subsequent Koukash's legal appeal.

Part of the agreement to bringing in the marquee allowance was the introduction of much stricter punishments for cap breaches. There is no precedent set under the current rules.

Further to this, Wigans breaches were "against the spirit of the cap" rather than direct, wilful breaches as is apparently the case here.

Fair enough, but the marquee allowance was only brought in during 2015 this breach stems back to 2014 so these "much stricter punishments" shouldn't apply.

A much more interesting argument, and depends entirely how the breach is treated. There's probably a couple of things in play, about whether the RFL believe that TP was the only breach, and whether they subsequently decide to account that second contract on this years cap. I know time of payment isn't relevant, was TP contracted originally to be at Salford this year?

I *think* the maximum, for a wilful breach, was 12 points before the introduction of the marquee allowance.