If a term of the contract was that he was due to receive a payment offshore which the law now says cannot happen there is an arguement that the contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. I need to do some digging but i'm pretty sure if one party cannot fulfil it's contractual obligation (ie us paying him offshore) then the contract is void.

Nicklas ready for 1st team rugby. Looks like our search might be over! www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html

Nicklas ready for 1st team rugby. Looks like our search might be over! www.thisishullandeastriding.co.u ... ticle.html

Unless Berrigan and his manager had the foresight to have a secondary figure inserted into the contract that would be payable in the event of the current "loopholes" closing.

If Berro doesnt agree to the changes to the terms of payment in his current contract he has no contract.

Possibly. Wouldnt have thought they would 3 years ago when the contract was written but who knows. Big sticking point would be whether FC inserted terms of variation to the original contract in which case we could have Berro contracted but he doesn't like it. Thats worst case scenario for us imo to have him playing against his will.

Who knows.

Two thoughts:
1. Yes it's possible he's the only one with offshore payments
2. He may be the only one we have decided not to compensate by giving an increase of UK salary cap cash

It's possible that due to the restriction of the salary cap we may have prioritised Fitz, Ogre, Moa etc above Berro if we had limited capacity to resolve. All speculation though.

Would be interesting if he did say that. Could well be that it's the debate thats ongoing now then.

Another thing to think about is how SL will deal with this wider issue. The salary cap is live but presumably some leniency needs to be given if the legislation changes will impact live spending.

I predict that the RFL will issue dispensations for the length of players current contracts. The big question is whether clubs other than Hull, Leeds, Wire and Wigan can afford to pay the extra. I doubt it.

Dispensations would sound sensible.

Depends on ths size of the fee's we're talking about. If FC have 5 players for example who receive 100k each offshore we would need to find approx 250k to compensate. That's affordable for us.

Leeds, Wire and Wigan could probably afford 250k-500k each too.

It's the smaller clubs that might struggle. I'd be interested to see for example how badly Salford are hit by this with their massive recruitment etc.

It makes our decision to invest in the likes of Westerman and Sharp even wiser. British players will be the way forward in the coming years now I reckon.

Really? Unusual to talk about that sort of legal conditional clause openly in the press before he'd even arrived. The link will be interesting.

Yup. And we could do worse than invest a larger amount than usual in our youth set up too. The emphasis really will be put onto developing your own talent. (unless there are other loopholes still in existence to exploit. Maybe hull FC should open a store in Thailand or Singapore and pay our Aussie players from there to avoid high rate UK tax)