So making profit isn't an incentive in the first place then? That doesn't make sense. You make it sound like Saints or Wigan aren't interested in making as much money as possible and given some of Saints merchandising prices I know that to not be the case. Clubs want to make as much money as possible. Changing the salary cap total isn't going to change that ethos because it's the fundamental reason for a business existing.

I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if this has been said, but isn't the answer obvious? Why are we even arguing about whether the SC should be raised when all that has to be done to retain the top eschelon of talent is to remove sponsorship from the cap! No extra cost to the clubs and also makes use of the fact that the best (and therefore highest profile) players are the ones who would attract the most lucrative sponsorships. Keep the SC for club paid wages, adopt the universally accepted best practice of favouring Academy nurtured players and simply allow whatever sponsorships individual players can attract. Simple really...

But the incentive isn't there. The cap in real terms is 30% lower than it was when it was brought in.

Anyway, how could raising the cap provide [iless [/iof an incentive?

I'm afraid in your attempts to defend the indefensible you are not making much sense.



I don't think any club owner of any RL club would ever buy into a RL club because it was a profitable investment. Even in football, which is awash with money there aren't many examples of club owners actually making a profit (Martin Edwards at Man U is probably the only good example I can think of). RL clubs are trophies for business people to play with not businesses, that's part of the problem.

But in any case, your argument doesn't work, because if profit making were enough of an incentive then clubs would have grown their revenue and we wouldn't be having this debate! They haven't done so, that is clear (the anti-reform people posting on this and other threads constantly remind us that most clubs can't afford to spend any more at present).

What we need is a declaration of intent from the RFL to raise the cap and for clubs to start to behave a little bit more commercially (and for the RFL to regulate them properly).

It's not going to happen overnight and we can only expect a small rise in the SC in the next 5 years but we must change things.

And most teams still aren't spending full cap, therefore the incentive of a cap higher than you can pay doesn't seem to be working does it?

Nice try Phuzzy but there's not enough envy or bitterness in your proposal and too much common sense. Even though the cap is failing to prevent clubs going under it is essential that it is retained for its prime purpose of holding back the cream so that the rest don't have to try too hard.

Quick question, has Wigan become a better and more stable club under the cap, or before the cap when they were losing money hand over fist with a mammoth wage bill?

Do you think the cap has held Wigan back?

Why focus on Wigan? I never mentioned them. Have Wakefield or Quins become more stable under the cap?

Because you specifically stated that the cap's prime purpose was "holding back the cream"; I assume you weren't referring to Wakefield or Quins as "the cream"?

It would be interesting to see how clubs turnover has altered over the past twelve years, to keep up with inflation, it would have had to increase by 30% to stay in line with inflation.

Of course not. I was referring to all of the top clubs, yours included. However, it's good to see that you only seem to think of Wigan in that way.

My use of Wakey illustrates IMO that the cap in it's current format doesn't bring stability to a club. In our case, that stability is down to IL. If the cap reverted back to its original intent of linking expenditure to income instead of trying to level the playing field perhaps Wakey's predicament wouldn't be so precarious. To me, the cap as it stands is the product of envy and lack of ambition. As Phuzzy asks, what is the problem with a player earning extra income from outside his club? I'll tell you. Clubs like ours could attract/retain the better players and that is what the cap is trying to limit, nothing else.

For example, we could sign Inglis with the help of a sponsorship deal and let Carmont go to Bradford. We gain, Bradford gain. It's not rocket surgery.

it did do for a time when we had a sugar daddy like Wire now have.

Simple yet flawed unfortunately.

It would be relatively easy to work around this. e.g. "Lenegan Paint Strippers sponsors Sam Tomkins".

Obviously the schemes wouldn't be that obvious but I'm sure you get the point.


Much better to scrap the CC completely and, if the intention really is to ensure the survival of the clubs, ensure that a MINIMUM amount of revenue is available to finance fixed outgoings.

"Spend whatever you like guys, attract the very best talent that you can afford to pay, pay the players what they deserve, just ensure that you have enough put aside to cover the essentials of running a club"

But you know full well that the majority of clubs wouldn't go for it as it would lessen the "competitiveness" and we'd go back to the situation in the 90s that the SC was introduced to try and stop. At the end of the day, there are only a small number of clubs who could afford to pay players whatever they wanted and unfortunately as with things like this it's majority rule.

A salary cap can of course work, we only have to look to the States to see that. The NHL, NBA, MLB and NFL (current labour dispute notwithstanding) to see that players can still be paid what they deserved within a set of constraints.

If you are happy for RL to play second fiddle to a second rate game like RU, then one way of doing this is to keep the salary cap as it is and let any star quality player go to the dark side. Maybe IL is happy to stay as a big fish in a small pond. Not criticising him, just making the point. Personally if I ruled the world, RL would be promoted to the hilt and we would never ever lose our best players to RU.