Here we go again. Why do people always go back to the salary cap.

We can increase the cap as much as we want. It won't matter as the majority of clubs won't spend anywhere near it.

Where do you think Castleford or the other clubs are gonna suddenly find a few extra millions of pounds to spend. Money just doesn't appear out of nowhere.

Until the clubs and the sport in general over here starts generating more revenue a cap increase wouldn't change much.

10 clubs spent up to the cap this year, and it wouldn't surprise me if 12-13 clubs hit it next year.



Cas posted a profit last year didn't it? Nobody is (or should be) suggesting raising the cap to NRL levels over night. However an increase of 80-100k a year for the next 5 years is a good place to start. By spreading it out over a period of time clubs can grow their revenue accordingly. Raising revenue by 100k a year is hardly unrealistic.

We can't allow the sport to be held back in this respect by the smaller clubs.

If 10 of 12 clubs are spending there or thereabouts full cap, whilst at the same time we're seeing a player drain to the NRL/Union, there's surely an argument there to up it?

Plus, it's not a "few extra million pounds" is it? The cap is what, £1.8m(ish?), even a hypothetical 25% increase is only an additional £450k, hardly 'millions'.

Increasing the cap would benefit very few clubs. How many could actually afford to pay an additional 1-2m per season without being bank rolled? You then have the issue of 2 or 3 clubs holding on to the top players without any reason to let them go, those players would also demand higher wages if they left to another club.

Before the salary cap increases the RFL need to invest in the sport, we need higher profile sponsors and more fans through the gates which in turn would give the sport a higher chance at securing better TV rights.

Increasing the cap is a short term fix for a long term problem.

3/4 of all teams spend up to the Cap, which implies that they [icould [/ispend more [iif [/ithey wanted.

See my post above. Where are you getting £1m-£2m from? Nobody has suggested it should be increased by that much.

The cap has remained static whilst TV deals, inflation, other codes have all gone up. The level it's at is way behind where it should be.

Dont think anyone is arguing that the current cap isnt too small.

What some of us are debating is if the majority of the clubs have the ability and the desire to actually spend to a bigger cap at this current time.

I suppose that'll depend on the size of any increase.

Double it to £3.2m+ and I doubt any would spend to cap for a while. Increase it by 10-20% to somewhere around £2-£2.2m, and I imagine there'll be a few clubs able to spend it.

The NRL salary cap is now $7million a year. In todays money, that's £4.262m.
If we say the Superleague cap is £1.8m for arguments sake, that's Just 42% of the NRL budget, 2.37 times higher.

The Union salary cap for the Premiership will be £7m next season (171icon_cool.gif.
3.9 times higher, with Superleague a mere 25.7% of it (again using £1.8m)
Albeit, Union clubs will have larger squads.

SL: £1.8m / 25 = £72k average
NRL: £4.26m / 25 = £170k av
RU: £7m / 30 = £233k av

They're the places some of our top players are going to, and looking at the numbers involved & the earning potential that comes with it, it's not hard to see why. Charnley & Solomona aren't going to Union because they love the game.

Considering we can't get most of the clubs to put aside 100k to fund a reserve grade side I just don't believe they have any desire to raise the cap. Maybe I am wrong though!

We all know the NRL is way ahead. They have a huge TV deal.

As for union in England. BT sport are paying over £150m for Aviva premiership rights. Think they actually pay less than sky do for super league.

Union clubs must be generating some major money to be spending up £7m per year.

The spending power in the NRL and Union is such that the cap level is irrelevant, we simply cant compete.
Even if we put £1/2 million on top of where we are, we still couldn't compete, we would just cause some hefty wage inflation.
Having said that, it should have moved up year on year, at least in line with inflation.
If there are 8/10 clubs that can sustain a higher cap, then clearly those clubs should not be held back to the determent of the game.

Quick calculation done in my head it should be at least £2.6m based on a £1.6m starting cap in 1999

Regards

King James

In reality the cap is higher than 1.8 million and has increased once you take into account all the allowances that have been introduced such as home grown players, those who have spent 10 years at a club and the marquee.

Agree with all that. Even if we lifted it 2.5 million, a fairly hefty increase, it's still so far behind the NRL and RU, that it won't make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. Clubs might be able to tempt the odd quality player from down under but generally we'll be paying the same group of players a bigger wage, which tbh I'd be all for. Those players that get targeted by the NRL and RU are still going to be tempted. Those that don't want to play RU or live in Aus/NZ will stay.

I've no idea how long was left on Solomona's contract, but if he's "allegedly " on £40k a year, surely Cas could cop for a sizable sum?

It makes me laugh when posters from certain teams go on about the Salary Cap. They're usually from the "Big Four" clubs, you know the ones, those that see success on a regular basis - how much success do you actually need at club level?

Or is it because you've never witnessed an International success, I just don't get it, I really don't.

2 years left on his contract DA.
I would like to know what the 3 offers were from Warrington, Sale and Gloucester. That would put it into some sort of prospective.

I think the key questions will be around what clauses there are in DS contract to stop him leaving to pursue other activities i.e. a professional sports contract should be carefully written to restrict certain things like skiing or boxing, which would be detrimental to the player being able to fulfill their duties. Playing another contact sport would probably come under this IF the club has a decent employment law solicitor checking their contracts.

The registration issue is irrelevant unless he decides to come back to RL later. Registration is relevant to the governing body/bodies of a given sport, not to a different sport. Best thing would be for Cas and DS to agree compensation terms (no doubt funded by Sale), otherwise it will be a legal route with the club petitioning breach of contract.

Or it might be that the standard of the league (at the top end at least) has plummeted in the last 5 years, coinciding with the loss of many English players and lack of virtually any top quality imports- not only can we not get current Aus players (always been the case), we now can't attract any NZ or even borderline origin players.
I just wanna see some good rugby played more than twice a season.

Regarding Solomona, surely he will face the same problems as Radradra and SBW and have to pay Cas some compensation if he 'retires' for walking out on his contract.

Not quite.
Both clubs, through the RFL and RFU, are affiliated to the Court if Arbitration for Sport (ironically acronymised to CAS). It is this affiliation that stops sporting clubs from different countries and sports stealing each other's contracted players. If Castleford lodge a complaint with CAS a they can instruct the RFU not to register Solomona and prevent him registering for any other affiliated club.

From the employment point of view, Castleford would need to prove at an employment tribunal that:
a) Solomona is in breach of contract; and
b) Castleford have suffered a financial loss.
The first part of this should be quite straightforward on many counts. He hasn't turned up for work as stated in his contract. He's also posted images of himself seemingly in another workplace.
The second part of this is more difficult. However, given that Castleford have received three offers for Solomona, this goes some way to showing the extent of the financial loss the club has suffered if these are presented as evidence to an ET.

Unfortunately for Solomona, if he is found to be in breach of contract and the ET makes a judgement on financial loss, Denny Solomona is personally responsible for compensating Castleford to this amount. He might even be liable for Castleford's legal costs. My gut feeling is that he hasn't thought this through far enough to understand the consequences he could suffer if Castleford are determined enough to go after him.

I also question how determined Sale will be in this case. He's already a gamble on the playing front and not an established RU player. Are they willing to pay the necessary legal fees to represent him defending an ET claim, the legal fees to have representation at the CAS and his salary, given the possibility they may be prevented from registering him? If that financial outlay really worth it for a winger who has never played their game? If I were in Sale's shoes, I'd be thinking about walking away from Solomona.

Good informative piece there NT.

I'm trying to resist posting too much. In this area, nothing is black and white and I'll just get hassle from Salford supporters because I questioned whether Rangi Chase would get a visa or not when he moved to them.

Solomona won't lose out on this, either Sale will pick up whatever tab is decided on, or they will drop their interest in him. If they do drop interest in him then his two options will be to either; return to Cas and serve out his suspension (which I suspect will be on full wage), or retire from RL which is a perfectly legal way for him to break a contract as Cas could hold on to his registration. The best that Cas can hope for is that Sale will pay his wages to them for the remainder of his contract (£80k-ish) as that will be the only value that they can actually place on him. Cas can't sack him as he will be a free agent so they either have to cut their losses and hope they get something for him, or they are stuck with a player who they will have to pay who will show little interest in getting selected to play. If they do suspend him without pay, and it doesn't say that they can do that specifically in his contract, then he would be able to take Cas to an Employment Tribunal for illegally withholding wages

Not if Castleford can show Solomona committed a repudiatiory breach, in which case they are entitled to dismiss him AND claim for financial loss.
Solomona may well lose out. He could face being taken to ET by Castleford and suffer a significant financial cost.
He is playing a dangerous game.
His value is not the remainder of his contract. His value will be reflected in the offers Castleford received and declined from Warrington, Gloucester and Sale.

But his value isn't reflected by those offers, precisely because Castleford rejected them, which means a court settling a breach of contract can consider them null. Assuming his contract has no buy out clause, the only value the matters is the value of the contract.

Good luck trying to prove repudiatory damage, the only winners there are lawyers.

Sadly I can only see Cas losing out on the big offers they had for Solomona, for a middle of the road sum being "paid" by Solomona (which will be paid as a part of his new contract with Sale).

Perhaps. Although it could be argued that as Castleford declined these offers, Solomona's value is actually higher!
If what is rumoured is true, it's suggests Solomona has committed the repudiatory breach. As such, Castleford are entitled to dismiss him but still make a claim against him for breach of contract leading to financial loss. As you say though, it's expensive for both the claimant (Castleford) and also the respondent (Solomona).
Like you, I can see the clubs agreeing to a outcome which sees Castleford receiving a decent but not astronomical fee.

The problem with both respects of the claim by Castleford is that it's not the courts responsibility to value the player/ damages. Castleford can put whatever value they want on the player, but they can't prove it because they don't have any bidders at that price! As such, it reverts back to the contract value.

Similarly, my first thought on how to quantify reputational damage would be through season ticket sales - but there's no like for like comparison. The signing of Hardaker, the retirement of Dorn, etc will all affect that, so I doubt a court would take that as evidence. All roads lead back to the contract value of the breach.

It's a sad situation, and there's unlikely to be any real winners in it. The biggest danger of reputational damage would be Castlefords decision to take it to court as it would hit their ability to recruit (I'd imagine.) Hopefully it can be resolved before it gets to that.