Wigan are not in a weak position.
Sarries are taking a risk. Paying, say £200k, for a player who may not take to their code of rugby at all. He could do another Lee Smith, go to Union and be back within months. That would have cost Sarries big time, first his fee than his wages at a rumoured £8000 a week for whatever time he was there.
Joel is a very expensive buy given his fee, then salary and the fact he's never played Union.
It's Saracens who are taking the risk not Wigan!

Of course. However, Wigan ARE in a weak position as regards bargaining.

Absolutely. In situations like this the player gets his move 99 times out of 100

The Wigan Observer says Joel has agreed personal terms and Wigan are expected to recieve around 250k with the move possibly being completed in the next couple of days.

They have been saying we'll announce Dudson, Flower, Lauaki and Thomas in 'the next few days' for 2 months now though.

Because there is no point keeping a player who doesn't want to stay. I suppose if your Man City (with near infinite cash) and salary caps didn't exist then you could hold some cards.

I think some of the assumptions being made about Joel's character are incredibly unfair. Rumour has it he is being offered 4 or 5 times his current salary, anyone would be silly to not give it some very serious consideration. It's probably a very difficult decision for him to leave Wigan and people saying stuff like "let him rot in the reserves" or questioning whether if Wigan in some way managed to prevent a transfer he won't give 100% for us are being very unfair imo.

If he does go, the blame isn't with the player or the club, it's with the people at the head or this sport in the UK who have let it get to this situation with very little resistance.

No. You have not got it straight at all. At this point in time no contract of any player who has gone to RU has been proven worthless and that is a fact. Easmond has just effectively sat a year out at Saints. Ashton was out of contract as well. What has not happened is a dispute over a player who is contracted to league who has just gone off mid contract without the agreement of his RL club.

If there were such a dispute it and the player ended up at the RU side for a small amount of compensation agreed by the courts THEN contracts would be worthless (or worth very little). That would set a precident that has as yet not been set and it would not affect just RL either but all sports that offer fixed term contracts to players.

The idea all sporting contracts are a complete waste of time (which is what this would mean) is not credible.

Wigan may well accept a fee for JT but it won't be because they have no choice. If they didn't want to accept the fee on offer I would bet my house Sarries would walk away rather than asking a judge to render sporting contracts truly worthless.

I don't follow your logic. Maybe it would help to break it into chunks.

Are you saying that Sarries have a vested interest in keeping the fee that they would pay Wigan high, in order not to set the precedent that contracts are worthless?

That is simply bonkers! Sarries do not have a monopoly on setting such precedents. All it would take is some other club to accept it and there it is!

I presume you are arguing that Wigan could enforce the contract of JT. To what end?

For a player to sit out eating up a chunk of the CC? Eating into the wage bill of Wigan? How could this possibly benefit Wigan?

Exactly.

Contracts aren't a waste of time but if one party breaches a contract a court will only allow the other party to recover its losses, not hold the party in breach to ransom.

Unfortunately RL doesn't pay its players much (relatively speaking). If its players aren't paid much you can't make out a case that being deprived of a player causes a great loss, because replacements are availlable for a relatively modest cost.

If IL has negotiated a £250k pay-off as suggested then he has done very well indeed. Having said that, it's buttons to a rich RU club; they won't mind shelling out that amount to get their hands on a player much better than his RU counterparts.

City would also have their player's registration. That protection doesn't apply with a cross-code switch.

The nail has well and truly been smacked on the head.