Will the Doc,have us playing union they have put there cap at 5 Million.

Big jump as well from around 600k
to just shy of 5mil

The cap has increased by 500k.

More interestingly, they have one player exempt from the salary cap with no financial limitation. See marquee signing.

One thing I've always wondered is the cap honestly legally enforceable?

I've always thought that on some level it is a restraint of trade.

No it isn't actually legal.

If the salary cap is illegal, then how come it's never been challenged? How come no one has ever challenged the RFU? Or even the ECB, as the First Class Counties all have to adhere to a salary cap?

The cap being in place is a good thing, but the amount it's currently set at needs to be reviewed. That is all.

Whilst the cap isn't legally enforceable under employment law, the RFL are perfectly within their rights to set their own operational rules for entry into their competitions. So in effect if a club wanted to employ someone that would take them over that limit & the RFL blocked the signature they would be completely unable to legally prevent that club from employing said player. However, they would be within their rights to say that you are now in breach of our operational rules & we are entitled to punish you in line with those rules.

Hope this helps.

NB. Agree with GT, the cap is a must but it needs to be reviewed on a regular basis & at the moment that just isn't happening. Unfortunately for as long as the cap suits the majority of SL clubs needs, as it does at the moment, this is unlikely to change.

I'd say the salary cap is more of a gentlemans agreement, in terms of the rules set by or for an organisation ie SLE. There is no way it's a legal obligation, after all an employer can pay his employees what he sees fit and in order to gain " the right person", in much the same way most employers choose to pay staff sweet fa now as long as it's not less than the minimum wage.

If challenged i'm sure it would/could be contested in a bosnan kind of way.

It’s plainly obvious the cap is holding back Superleague's potential. Furthermore in the entire history of the sport just how many top flight clubs actually went bust before the salary cap was introduced? Probably fewer than recently I’d guess.

So you have to ask what purpose it actually serves other than allowing some clubs to keep up with the joneses. The problem is less well off clubs don’t give a flying f**k about the growth of the sport, all they care about is their own clubs situation. You also have to ask if the salary cap is encouraging some club officials to spend more than they really should, because they see a smaller gap to take them to a higher level they really shouldn’t be at.

Unfortunately the longer this continues the more we are damaging RL and allowing other sports to expand tenfold. We need to allow the stronger to grow even stronger for the benefit of the entire sport.

A team can sign as many players as they like, and choose not to register them as part of their super league playing squad (they can play in other tournaments.) as others have said the super league can use the operating rules to then limit which players are put forward for super league using the limitation of player compensation ruling (which is no different to the Olympics requiring amateur status in some sports) - so no it's not illegal.

It should grow with inflation as a minimum

I think the only challenge to a cap came in major league baseball,but it never came to a decision because the league and players compromised with I think they call it a luxury player tax.
This allows the league to set a spending level but allows those clubs that want to spend more to do so by putting an amount equivalent to the amount over spent into a pot that is then distributed to the club's that under spend.
They also have a minimum spend to stop those clubs that would otherwise spend well below the cap and survive of the hand outs from the sport.

There is a development in the round ball game where rlThis Fellarl is on the case.
It may be easier just to read the rlPress Releaserl at the bottom of the link.

rlRU Clubs will have extra £500,000 to spend on player wagesrl





So up to 5M + 1 marquee player outside the cap ..
The above is where is won't work in SL.
outside of individual corp. sponsorship deals & central dist monies from Twickenham, they got a 38M a yr deal (3M per club )from the new BT deal.



the current SKY deal with the SL was 90M over 5 yrs split between 14 clubs ( Approx 1M ) , Even with the cake cut 12 ways in 2015 more of the SKY money is being spread out to the Championship to try to make this new structure viable .

the First Utility deal is reported to be 750K per year

RU's Aviva deal worth > 400 K per club per year.

We all know the Dr wants to spend more ( and can afford it ) . but until the sport can start to attract TV deals & headline sponsorships approaching those of RU I cannot see the Cap being loosened.

The cap, legally, doesn't have to be enforceable.

You want to play the game that the RFL/SL administers; it is a requirement to adhere to the operational rules. Guess where the cap lives; as part of the operational rules.

Another part of the operational rules is, you can't challenge the operational rules.