First of all

Someone did suggest £3m.

What I'm saying is that if a player has a chance to triple/quadruple whatever their current wage is and the club blocks it by setting a fee that is too expensive then you are going to have a very unhappy player. It's not football where they are all set up for life anyway, this is literally life changing money to a RL player.

If a club comes in with a reasonable offer of a transfer fee (which around 250k would be imo) and the player decides they want to go, then there is little the RL club can do. Im not sure why you add that bit about 50k at the end because I never said anything like that?

£3million was just a random high number I thought I would put out there, I know that is impossible but what I mean is that Rugby League clubs should be aiming for high figures when it comes to compensation, it is a business and if some of the players end up being valued higher then surely there has to be changes to the cap system. However it's The RFL so probably not.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree on what constitutes a reasonable fee. Considering Wigan's time, effort and investment, the damage to the club, the ongoing damage to the game, and then the remainder of Joel's contract which will need to be bought out in addition to everything lese, I still think that £400K would be a good start-point.

But I honestly don't care about this unhappy player lark. If we're ever to finally draw a line in the sand on this matter, there's going to be at least one unhappy player - it may as well be Joel, given that he's the first loss I think we will really, really feel.

Sorry didn't see that but I certainly was not thinking along those terms. That would obviously be a nonsense figure. Setting a proper fee however (and the £400K suggestion seems reasonable to me) is not.



I am sorry but that is irrelevant. If an agent goes to a player and says I can get you triple wages by getting you an RU gig without first seeing if the transfer is feasible the player has no right to feel hard done to by his club if they set a reasonable fee on his move if the RU side won't pay it. The agent has offered something he could not deliver.



I mentioned £50K because you said "At the minute, unless the player says NO, then the RL club has to roll over and wave goodbye." and if that is the case then Union can offer £50K because you seem to think because the player has been offered a high wage that is the end of it. Quite frankly if it is inevitable why would the union side pay [ianything[/i?

So let me ask you. If the Union club offered a fee unacceptable to Wigan (however much that might be) what should Wigan do?

I would have thought 400k+ was perfectly reasonable, especially only 1 year in to a 5 year deal. But I just couldnt see Wigan turning down 250k.

The problem with a player being "unhappy" in this situation is they could become uninterested and their game gets affected, to a point where there was no point keeping them anyway, with the added insult that the club isnt financially rewarded.

In my honest opinion, and it has been said time and time again for a fair few years now, clubs should be rewarded for promoting youngsters in to their first team by implementing a system whereby only a certain % of their wages count towards the salary cap.

Sorry few crossed wires I think, (Im gonna blame the time )

In the situation you mention there then obviously Wigan tell the RU/NRL/whatever club to get stuffed. But in this particular example of Joel moving to Saracens it appears though the clubs are attempting to negotiate a transfer fee which both parties will be "happy" with.

I would imagine if a player was told by an agent I can triple your current wages, then the union club offered a stupidly low amount, then the player may be a little pee'd off but would probably understand why the RL turned it down.

I would also imagine a RU club wouldnt come in for one of our stars without knowing that they were going to have to pay a decent fee, especially for contracted international players in their mid 20s. I still stand by my point that if a union club is interested and the player wants to go then the RL club dont gain anything by digging their heels in and will eventually end up letting the player go.

I also don't buy the argument that players leaving RL is OK!

As for Joel's worth, it's going to be difficult for Wigan's barrister to stand up before a high court judge to argue that a player who is only paid £80k p.a. is "worth" say £500k in terms of lost income to the club and costs of replacement!

Joel is a special talent, but in RL special talent doesn't equate to expensive staff cost (because of the SC).

I'm afraid that while the SC works to help short-sighted club owners clamp down on the pay of playing staff, it doesn't help them as employers claiming damages from their (relatively) poorly paid playing employees. They can't have their cake and eat it - if players like Joel don't cost much they can't argue they are "worth" a great deal. If club owners did try to run that argument then that could be very dangerous for them; the club owners might find the SC coming under rather closer legal scrutiny that they would wish. It's far from clear that the SC in its current form would be upheld by a court as a lawful restraint of trade. (The NZ courts allowed the NZRU cap in a restraint of trade case, but subjected it to strict conditions; I imagine a British court would approach it in a similar way and would be unimpressed by the fact that the SC has not risen in line with inflation and that only a small number of big clubs have won the SL, which makes the SC look like a device to reduce player pay rather than something for the good of the game.)