Just seen a retweet from Gareth Walker that the new "Marquee" player rule (salary cap exempt) will be given the green light very soon.

That should free up a good chunk of cap space, £150k?

Wouldn't it depend on what you paid your marquee player?

Looks like if you stamp your feet enough you get your way. I wonder how this will affect anything anyway. The bigger, richer clubs at the top will potentially get the superstars, the smaller, poorer clubs at the bottom will break the bank to get someone who will have no effect on their position in the league and clubs will be in and out of administration right left and centre.

How will championship clubs fit into this to make 2015 a level playing field?

A stupid idea built around Koukash stamping his feet long enough.

agree there chris

And anyway, Billy Slater told me at Wembley he's coming to FC in 2015

How and who would you define Marquee and how many marquee players are you allowed.?

I agree stupid idea by a bunch of clowns ruinning our sport.

I'd assume so, and that your Marquee player would deem to be your highest paid, so if Gareth Ellis was on £150k per year that would free up that amount of cap space.

Although it has been talked about before the good doctor arrived on the scene I do agree with Chris28 that his foot stamping seems to be pushing it through quicker than expected

One player per club, and I would guess that your highest paid player would be deemed the Marquee player

Marquee exemption has been around rugby league longer than koukash has! It was brought to vote a couple of years ago, but didn't pass (more teams wouldn't benefit from it than would) they've been trying to bring it in ever since, it's in the policy review from last September too - what I don't agree with is koukash demanding to bring it in now (a week before the start of the season for Christs sake!) just because he has someone lined up and no other team does. If it's to be brought in bring it in for 2015 so everyone knows what to expect.

I'm not a particularly massive fan of the marquee idea, and I think we'll see liberal uses of the word marquee should it be brought in, but the club trained salary cap cap is a great introduction, so I'm willing to give it a go. Precisely who gets brought into the league on the back of it should be interesting to see.

And indeed, the "marquee player" is whoever is the highest paid player at the club.

Room for some creative accounting there?

Would they be completely exempt or would they 'count as', like they're doing for high-earning homegrown players?
For example a star player on £200k counts as being on £100k.
The cap hasn't risen for so long, that some slight loosening seems inevitable (and arguably appropriate, despite many clubs still struggling, from a player's POV) with the increase in Sky cash.
There'll be a tension between those that want to balance the books and those that want to 'invest' and 'develop the brand' etc. This is a reasonable way of bridging the gap - but it's yet more complexity.

So by that Kashcow could potentially go over the cap by £250,000 to get his very special player. Whilst the other 75% of SL clubs struggle to reach the cap max as it is.

Why not up the cap in line with inflation. Its been the same amount since its inception hasn't it.

Fuck it. Go out and sign Falou.

Somewhere between 10 and 12 clubs will spend the full cap this year (using the magically power of informed guessing ) - that doesn't mean all of them want an increase mind!

The salary cap has decreased since it's introduction. Whilst it's hard to pin down the very beginning value of the cap (due to it being the 50% rule as opposed to a set value) top teams were spending around 2.5mill - you are correct, I've been calling for salary cap increases tied with inflation for a long time!

The "new Sky deal" if I'm correct, will give clubs £900k extra over the next 2 years, and no salary cap increase to spend it on.
I thought the idea was to give clubs more financial stability.

"Marquee" signings sound like a recipe for disaster.