The thing is, they let the clubs vote for it. The status quo suits the top clubs, they are where they want to be so paying more is no advantage to them. The bottom clubs usually can't afford to pay more than they are, so the ability to pay more is no advantage, plus the gap between them and the rich clubs will increase because they'll have less relative spending power. The only way any club will want to raise the salary cap is if they can afford to pay more, and aren't one of the top clubs. Who does that leave? Salford. Maybe Hull FC too

Personally I like the bloke, I wasn't sure at first but now he seems to of calmed down a little. He said in a radio interview that he would break the cap and use methods that others were using to do so. What those methods are we can all speculate.

I think it is time to scrap the cap completely. I'd like to see it replaced with a requirement for all clubs to at least break even over each licence period. Whether the income comes from gate receipts, sponsorship or a simple gift from the owner would be irrelevant but it can't come for loans saddling teams with debt. There are many rich businessmen out there who can't afford football clubs. Let's try and get them interested in RL. The good Dr must have many contacts and could be the start of a revolution.

Would we even have enough teams to form a league if that happened? Others on here will know more about the club's finances than me but I thought most made a loss and relied on sugar daddies?

It was always supposed to be but then they started tinkering with it so it never happened. You may recall it was at first £1.8m when the flat rate cap first came in. It them dropped to £1.6m because they took National Insurance contributions out of the figure which was said to have in effect allowed for a real terms increase (or at least parity - I can't remember). They have made other tweaks over the years such as a player with ten years service only counting 50% and a home grown player the same (both up to a limit of £50K I think) . All those are set to he scrapped and it will be just one allowance of £1.825m from now on. Taking inflation into account that is still well below where it should be.

Does anyone know roughly how well clubs are doing? I wonder how much the 5 richest could afford (who would that be, by the way? Us, Wire, Salford, Leeds and Hull FC? St Helens perhaps?), if given free reign.....

Who says they have to rely on sugar daddies? I think a bit of both is ideal.

If I was a multi-millionaire and owned Wigan I still wouldn't want the club to be a constant financial drain and would like it to be self sufficient on a daily basis but if it wasn't I'd not be after selling my star players to break even. Star player leaves for free having seen their contract out? Why would I care? If the club needed to take a loss every now and again or a large transfer fee was required I'd view that as what I was there for. If the SC was raised to a level beyond Wigan's current income capabilities I'd fund the shortfall while working to plug the gap. Rich owner doesn't have to equal badly run club.

Ideally the "sugar daddy" wouldn't be an individual anyway. It would be a TV company with a much bigger contribution such as the NRL are getting in Oz.

Why wouldn't we have enough teams. It would basically be a rule saying you are only allowed to spend to your means. It's then up to clubs to generate revenue or attract rich benefactors.

because teams commit to a player's wage before they know their income for the year. So you either sign big names and hope the crowds follow, then risk getting booted out if they don't, or you don't sign big names, attendances drop, as does your league position, and you might still get booted out if attendances drop too much. Besides which, there are loads of variables, what if you have to pay for a stadium for example? At present a team could make a loss one year due to spending a load on a stadium, then make up for it with profits from future years. Under your system they couldn't, they would have the best ground in the championship!

Spending on a new stadium would not affect the profit and loss account as its capital spending and would appear on the balance sheet.

Its 5 years since I studied any accountancy and I was rubbish at it then to be honest. What about, a one off big transfer fee on a player who you expect to make that money back over coming years by putting bums on seats, selling merchandise etc. I'm sure there are various one-off expenses that result in a one-off yearly loss

Actually it would in the form of depreciation each year, but I take your general point that it is capital investment.

Big transfer fee would go straight to the profit and loss (as would big transfer IN fee)