The NRL operates a live cap.....

No it wouldn't. Melbourne would never have broken the live cap had their fraud not been discovered. It's easy to get round the cap auditors, very easy. Most SL chairmen will have directorships in major companies, with endless subsidiaries that simply won't be investigated by the cap auditors.

It would incredibly easy for a player to be paid an additional £100,000 a year if required and it's very hard to uncover it. You just have to hope that they won't do it for fear of the player or someone else ratting them out.

So does Super League doesnt it ?

I feel for Melbourne

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I wonder how this will afect Bellamy's standing in the game?

Can't see it TBH. As long as he doesn't crouch and has good posture e'll be fine.

Problem with what happened when Wigan got found out to be cheating was that the remainder of the Super League clubs didn't hold firm against them. For example St Helens even supported them in their case against the RFL.

A proper punishment, much deserved, I just wished it happened a few years before as the RFL might have routinely followed the NRL and done the same to Wigan, unlikely, though.

Matt King on GMR last night...

"We don't know what other players earn".

So how do posters on RLFans know?

Slight difference in the outcome & scale of Storm's misdemeanours as compared to Wigan's. NRL have historically been harsher on transgressions in the cap, probably due to the size of the sport over there & the fact that it is bigger than the clubs they are punishing. Like it or not had Wigan been deducted enough points to see them relegated the other year it would have been a massive own goal by SL/RFL to demote the biggest club in the country - would be akin to the Premiership demoting Manchester Utd for owing a few quid...

Cheating the word is, not owing a few quid.

No, Utd owing a few quid (takes tongue out of cheek). I dislike it as much as you do, but you can't escape that for Wigan to have been demoted for breach of cap would be like Utd being deducted points effectively relegating them... British sports administrations have no bottle when it comes to matters like that. Even in Storm's case they haven't been demoted despite the level of sanctions. The only country I can think of who have the bottle to demote teams for cheating would be Italy in the case of Juve - and that's just a whole other can of worms....

What rule (that was in place at that) time did Wigan break?

What do you think would have happened had the RFL tried to do what the ARL have done to Melbourne?

I cant see anyone making that obvious link.

Weren't you found guilty of breaking the salary cap then? And as already stated, the RFL/SL would have seen demoting Wigan as a massive own goal & not had the bottle to do it. Whether that is right or wrong is a moot point.