RLFANS.COM - The World's Most Popular Rugby League Website

Quote: DaveO "If he gets £200K he has done very well? Sorry but that is absolute rubbish.

It does not matter what Wigan are paying him. They can set the price on him leaving and if Sarries do not want to pay it they will not take it to court but will walk away for reasons explained to you already in other threads.

The salary cap has nothing to do with the compensation either.
And I've explained it to you. Any damages would be paid in respect of Wigan's actual losses (not some imaginary figures dreamt up by upset RL fans who think there is an abstract "value" they can't point to). The losses would be (relatively) small because even if Wigan have to pay 50% more than they are paying Joel to get a replacement for him, that additional cost isn't going to be much over 4 years (if you assume an extra £40k given that Joel is supposed to be on £80k, that equates to £160k over 4 years, hence my saying that Wigan would do well to get more than £200k).

As for the SC, the point is that it keeps RL players' wages down. If RL players are cheap to hire, the damages for them breaching their contracts will be low.

And just because RU pays its players more than RL, you can't use the "value" argument to claim bigger damages from Sarries - damages would be payable to Wigan for it's losses. If there is upside for Sarries in that they are getting a bargain (because they'd have to pay an enormous transfer fee to an RU club for a player of his quality) then that is irrelevant to the question of damages.

IL could have called his/their bluff. If he had have done so Joel could have immediately signed a contract with Sarries, with Sarries putting in an offer to settle for say £250k (on the basis that if the offer is not accepted Sarries would be entitled to their costs from the date of the making of the offer - see my earlier post on this). What would Wigan have done then? They'd have had to take up the offer, I suspect, unless IL wanted to fund a defiant and expensive gesture.