Interesting.

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/apr/01/super-league-inland-revenue-offshore-payments[/url

your in poo poo

More quality journalism from the Guarinad - it hasn't been the Inland Revenue for quite some time now...

The issue has been brewing for a while though, and won't just affect rugby league.

Interesting that Wigan avoided being the first name on the list.

its obvious isnt it

going for Us, Saints and Warrington..big famous clubs first

It did say major sides

Silly me although there is a rather obvious flaw in your theory also.

There not a big club?




Their fans certainly think they are

Their wage bill is Leeds + Saints

Im guessing its somewhere in the region of say....Oh.........£1.6 Million

Mr Wilson wouldn't want to make them look bad now would he

About four years ago at a shareholders at Wigan meeting Mo was asked why Wigan were not doing this.

He replied that he expected the Inland Revenue to clamp down on it and that Dave Whelan(who was THEN the owner) has specifically instructed the club not to do it.

Are you seriously suggesting that in the past 25 years, Wigan have actually behaved in a sensible financial manner at least once ?!?!?!?!?

I refuse to believe you, sell Tomkins and Ainscough and sign Wally Lewis.

Are you calling me a liar?

a saint with morals!

Could explain why Warington need to unload Gleeson (alledgedly).

Wouldn't it be "against the spirit" of the cap?

Just shows what an out of touch idiot he was then. That the loop-hole is closing now is no justification for not utilising it for the last four years.

No. My understanding is it counts on the cap. This was purely a tax saving for the players benefit, making their salaries over here a much more attractive proposition for them.

To reiterate, there was nothing wrong in this at all. Its' just a loop-hole that is being closed.

They didn't need to stoop to using loopholes to break the cap, they just blatantly ignored it.

As for Saints how rubbish must their accountants be if they were using these loopholes and still overspending!

There was also nothing wrong with deferring payments to keep inside the £1.6 miilion but it it didn't stop the "spirit of the cap" being brought into play.

The RFL presumably deemed it otherwise though when carried out on such a scale? Four point deduction wasn't it? Or was the four point the year after? Was that the largest penalty handed down in this country?

Lyndsay still managed to squirm out of the worse of it though because the new punishment's were being introduced but wigan avoided it because some paperwork hadn't been filled in properly.

You can't really blame Lindsay for the RFL's sheer incompetence...... not this time at least.

The offshore payment thing could be an interesting development though and it will be worth watching how it plays out, especially if it impacts on the current seasons cap.

Erm, yes there was. Hence the penalty.

To reiterate, these schemes were about saving players tax. They had no effect on the cap whatsoever and were included within it.