I find your response to my posting somewhat puzzling. Is your outburst aimed at the Daily Telegraph or the clubs who failed to back the proposal?.

. <----- the point






<---- you

I'm all for the plan and think it would be great for the game as a whole, but it is more of a benefit to the big clubs, which is why the cellar dwellers have not backed it.

So we do nothing, allow the games best players to go elsewhere, and we all end up as "Cellar dwellers" ?

This proposal is a stupid idea. It is open to all sorts of skullduggery. We haven't seen the fine print. It is obvious that Koucash wants a way around the cap per se. It may be that Saints feel his proposal is unworkable.

It is part of what needs to be a bigger debate. Do we keep the cap or not?

Personally I think we should keep the cap - just raise it. Having ambition is all very well, but it needs to be sensible. The raising of the caps in RU and the NRL plus the effects of the recession have brought us to this position. I suspect that any "marquee" signing would see us all buying a lot of over-the-hill Aussies looking for a last pay cheque (no names!!).

Anyway after last night I should think Dr Koucash will have a bit more on his mind - like how to get the 'has beens' that he's already bought playing for each other.

That is in effect what they have just told us.

They all have long histories and are big names based on that but in the modern era they obviously can't afford [ior even worse[/i [udon't want[/u to pay more then the salary cap allows. Being a big name clubs or not, this is just more evidence of the total lack of ambition exhibited by certain SL clubs.

Like I've said before, Hull give the impression if being a big club, they have a lot of fans that's for sure but they're in a council stadium so I imagine they don't generate the profits through that.

Hull are like the neighbours that buy everything on tic, but give the impression they're loaded.

Just what is the point in paying for salaries that you can't afford?

How many Super League clubs do you think run at a profit? Leave aside those like Warrington who have Moran and Salford who have Koucash - if they walked away those clubs would drown in debt.

Bradford's business plan in the middle of the last decade was predicated on getting bigger and bigger crowds, but the crowds just plateaued. If a club isn't able to bring in money to pay for higher salaries then you have financial disaster.

So if we just let the ones who can afford it pay unlimited salaries we get to the point where we have a league with only 2 or 3 particicpants. Actually I get the impression that there are lots on here who would be quite happy with that scenario.

You're wrong about Wire drowning in debt, we make a profit without Moran.

The Aussies have a marquee player option with a defined amount of salary or portion of it exempt from the cap. I think it is AUD $550K.

It is no more open to skulduggery than any other regulation.



It is no use saying we should raise the cap or do this or that because that horse has bolted with the Sky deal.

We aren't dealing in theories here or what [iwe[/i would like to see but an actual proposal that was on the table that could have changed the ability of clubs to pay to players wages.

As to over the hill Aussies well there would be absolutely nothing to stop the RFL making it a rule that they had to meet the UK trained player criteria for example. That may not be what Koukash was proposing as I guess he wanted to be able to sign the likes of SBW but like anything a bit of sensible negotiation can take you some way towards what you want rather then leaving you stuck where you were if as has happened the proposal is rjected outright.

At the end of the day this was the first concrete proposal for ages on the table to address the player drain and to allow SL clubs to try and compete for players signatures and it has been thrown out which I think is a mistake.

You seem to have a bit of an issue with Koukash but is that a reason to dismiss his proposal so readily?

BTW, you are probably going to see an influx of over-the-hill Aussies anyway because IIRC part of the restructure involves increasing the overseas quota. Clearly a move to address the obvious fact that given we have not got enough quality players for a 14 team SL league we certainly have not got the numbers available to increase the competitiveness of the lesser teams in a 24 team cmpetition. Add in the proposal to limit the number of Academies to 10 and you can see where this is going.

Who said anything about paying salaries you can't afford?

It stands to reason if you aint got the cash you can't afford the player. I thought it was implicit and didn't actually need spelling out clubs would need to raise the revenue to do this.

If they can't and do it anyway well they will get into financial trouble and possible end up like Bradford. Why we fear this I am not sure because at least it exposes those running such clubs as incompetent. We need to get these people out of the game.

What we do now is actually protect the bunch of lightweights who run many clubs. We set a cap level low enough so they don't have to lift a finger to improve their clubs finances.

If when the new deal comes arrives in 2016 the cap is not raised the Sky money will pay the entire £1.825m salary cap.

That is great if you have the marketing skills of a chimp but no good for the sport. A totally head in the sand approach.



None of this follows. You are jumping from one conclusion to the next.

Don't you think it is about time clubs did some work to raise their incomes so plans such as that proposed by Koukash are feasible?

Although we face a player drian issue now they could bring it in with the new structure in 2016. That would give clubs time to seek sponsorship or other ways to finance their marquee player. If they fail to secure the finance by then well that would their own fault.

This is it in a nutshell.... Time for clubs to up their game, not drag others down to their level....

You don' think that clubs haven't been trying for decades to raise more cash? Here's an idea - lets raise some cash to help buy a player? Crikey - I'll bet the "lightweights" never thought of that one!!