and currently Bradford beating form team Catalan, and Hull kr beating league leaders Saints... wakefield beating Leeds on Friday....etc etc...

this will all have to stop so we can allow Salford to be Competitive immediately....

Ridiculous idea, when all clubs can afford it then yes but when much bigger clubs than Salford are in financial trouble then its just a stupid idea!

Ming just posted on twitter - Once again my plan for a marquee player has been blocked by the RFL friendly clubs. So frustrating.

so thats twice now his evil plan has been foiled.

So we change everything just so that Salford can get to the top quicker than they normally would. Koukash has already proved that you can't buy a team, so why persist? i'll bet that you weren't making this argument 12 months ago.

wot no effing and jeffing.............!!! hes' taken it rather well then.....!!

its a sensible idea..... and thats speaking as a fan of a club that has a rich backer who would have no doubt offered Tony Smith a fair bundle to go and play with...

it took us a few years to get where we are and we still havent won a title since 1955, wheres the fun in doing it the way koukash wants to do it with Salford......

Crikey even Abramovich waited 6 years for a champions league trophy.

show some patience man...

I have no problem with the marque player idea as long as it done properly and above board. everyone seems to think that it means bringing over GI or Cooper Cronk. It might mean keeping a James Graham a Chris Hill or a Sam Tompkins here. At the minute clubs are restricted by a cap and rightly so. But this is standing in the way of potentially keeping our own Marque players. If the club can prove above all means that they could spend more on the cap and that the money being spent will not break thebank and still be under a figure say wages are 75% of turnover. then yes let a club keep a star or sign one.
The way that clubs are starting to devlop talent is far better than it used to be most clubs inc London are producing great talent. If we dont do something all the great talent will be developed by us and playing elsewhere. This is the reason i think it could work not just to see Jonathan Thurston at the HJ although that would be good...

Also as for the argument that some clubs cant afford a marque player and we are ok. No one thought of Wire when we were skint and Wigan, Staints, Leeds and Bradford were going full time and spending a fortune. Also why should we be penalised because Bradford was run by a bunch of Chimps and cocked it up.

How would you define a marquee player and who would gave the authority to do so?

Agree with this, there would have to be a clear, precise definition (maybe even using playing stats) for a marquee player. You'd end up with the a few greedy players getting the hump at being overlooked.

Daft idea, don't like it.

The argument surrounding marque players is similar to the one for having a salary cap. If you have no restrictions, then crudely speaking, a club with a very rich owner can buy up all the available talent and win all the silverware ad nauseum.
At the moment we are a wealthy club, so as a supporter you could well say that we have had decades of barren years, so yes, we would like to be a club that buys up all the decent players and wins trophies. But, rugby league is essentially funded by Sky - they put in the majority of the money to keep the SL clubs afloat. From 2015 each SL club will receive £1.825M. And Sky get their money from subscribers / advertisers. Are subscribers going to want to see Warrington beating Hull KR by 100-12 ?. Even as a Wire supporter, I don't think I would get very excited by the prospect, and certainly the neutrals are not going to get turned on by it. I will be going to the London match on Sunday, but I am not going with the same level of excitement that I would if we were playing Wigan or Saints. And what will the attendance be on Sunday ?, I am guessing somewhere around 9,000 max as there will be plenty of Wire supporters that don't bother going either.

So the first consideration needs to be about money, and in particular about ensuring that viewers and spectators see plenty of close matches where the result is difficult to predict in advance. That ensures we get good revenue from gates and Sky, which in turn means the game can remain healthy, and hopefully even start to grow. At the moment Wire are in a fortunate position, we can still buy / attract high quality players whilst complying with the salary cap. I think we should enjoy that situation and ignore the request for marque players. Koukash is simply wanting to cut corners and buy success for Salford. He needs to plough his money into the local schools, clubs, and the Salford academy, to get a healthy number of kids coming through to the first team. Trouble is, it will probably take him 7-10 years to get into that position and he doesn't seem to be a patient man.

This coming up again surprised me to be honest. I was under the impression that we were moving towards only the first £100k of a club developed player counting on the cap. So Saints could offer Roby £300k to stay with them, but only £100k of that would count on the cap, with no limits on how many players you could apply this to. Keeping Saints as the example it could mean they could also try to bring Graham & Eastmond back should they have the funds to do so.

This probably isn't the best solution for us as a club in the short term as I'm not sure we would have any players on £100k+ that have come through our system? Saints, Wigan & Leeds would be the main beneficiaries. However it promotes a good youth policy, which has to be good for the game...?

As Charlie mentions with regard to sky & its neutral customers who don't live within the M62 corridor. The main ingredient that will attract neutrals is the uncertainty of who will win the weekly contest put before them on their tv screens which will only happen with a more level playing field.
Hopefully this will start to provide a viable alternative for the subscribers to the tedium of endless football & encourage them to attend live games.

I thought of a rule in which clubs could opt in the salary cap and opt out.

Those that opt out can spend what they like over the current salary cap value BUT whatever they spend over they haveto match by putting in a pot.

So a million over the cap would actually cost 2 million to the club.

That money is then divided out between those that opted in.

Dr NoCLass has just made a marquee signing in Kevin Locke, together with the marquee English signings (Chase, Morley, Hock) he has already made.

If his theory is right and this is the way to go, then I expect Salford's gates to double in anticipation of seeing said marquee player, and for them to make a late surge for the top six.

If that happens there may be some substance to his argument, if they don't then I suggest he belts up, and does what anyone who has achieved success since the Wigan dominance in the 80's/90's has done, and build form the bottom up.

...and if half the teams opted out?