Again, ask why those clubs can't afford it and what they're doing to grow the business. That's the way to deal with any inequality in the league. We don't achieve anything by letting the tail wag the dog.

Pre salary cap days it was the wealthy clubs getting into financial strife. Wigan had to sell Central Park to survive. Leeds was within huge trouble and in serious danger of going bankrupt.

Lets see what financial position the sport and the clubs are in following this pandemic before deciding what road to take.

You don't need a salary cap to encourage clubs to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. You need good management.

Exactly and thats why we need a salary cap.

I fear for the long term future of professional RL in the UK. My perception is of a long slow decline that has resulted in less money, in real terms, coming into the game both through the turnstiles and TV money. The result of this has IMO been that the standard of the competition has not kept pace with the NRL. It could well be that the loss of income this year may see that situation worsen and start a vicious circle of reduction in income and decline in the standard of the game in this country. Whilst some clubs may be able to ride through the problem if they have strong bank balances and or wealthy owners. If there are not enough viable clubs to have a sensible league, then the Super League may cease to exist as we currently know it. With the level of Debt Leeds must have on the books following the magnificent redevelopment of our stadium, I'm unsure how we will fare financially. Worrying time indeed

We don't. There are clubs that are fiscally responsible and would continue to be with or without a salary cap.

The ones that aren't will not be saved by a salary cap. Exibit A: The number of insolvency events occuring within the salary cap era.

Can i ask how many clubs you think can afford to spend massively if no cap was there? In my eyes its Warrington and nobody else.

And they cant do it without a rich owner.

Rugby League isnt awash with money in the good times, in current times the game needed a bail out from the Government to survive yet fans think clubs have money to throw around. Laughable.

Do you mean like what we have had since the inception of Super League?

Does the sport really need to be such a money dominated thing though? Maybe going back to a semi- professional sport would be surprisingly refreshing......
Just a thought

No i mean 4 clubs playing in Super League not 12 like now

I depends on your definition of "massively". I think there are more clubs that are, or should be, capable of spending to a salary cap level that was set back in 2002 during ordinary times and should be capable of maintaining a level of pay that is on parity with inflation.

But I'd reiterate again - instead of saying "there is no money in the sport so we can't raise the salary cap, even in line with inflation", we should be saying "what the hell is going on a club level to create a situation where there so little cash in the sport, we have to pay the players £1m less in real terms?". That's the real issue here - why are clubs playing in front of declining crowds, why aren't they increasing revenue and why are, in some cases, practically giving away tickets and sponsorship? Name me another professional sport that has seen such a lack of growth.

The line of thinking that we have to supress the salary cap year after year is a false economy. It devalues the product, makes recruitment and retention harder and makes it more difficult to sell what is increasingly becoming a "Pound Shop Sport" to new audiences, sponsors and broadcasters.

And above all else it is an issue of fairness. The club owners are frankly taking the mick out of the playing talent, asking them to play more and more, asking them to bear the brunt of the current situation with actual pay cuts, and imposing real-terms cuts for two decades. If your employer tried the same shtick you'd move to a competitor - except that it's much more difficult for RL players to do the same because the clubs have effectively colluded with each other to keep renumeration low.

I think there should be a cap however I think it should be linked to either income or profitability.

If you can earn more you can spend more. That should incentivise clubs to raise their income.

But limit the types of income that qualifies. No loans for instance, including director loans. Then if a rich owner wants to spend money on his club he can do. But he has to be prepared to lose that money, not put a charge on the club. Or an owner can do that but it can’t be used to buy players. They can do it to invest in the club infrastructure instead.

We need to do what we can to avoid a Bradford situation. A series of clauses in the cap relating to financial health of the club would make sense to me and encourage the right attitudes.

Which clubs are you referring to that could spend more can i ask? I dont see any other than Warrington.

Our club couldnt but that doesnt mean its a badly run club. Should Leeds be asked "what the hell is going on? Leeds is the best run club in Super League but cant.

3 rich owners

No, you would get actual franchise RL. And, in all likelihood, a more competitive league.

Whether the fans would follow is another thing entirely, but Toronto and Catalan have done ok attracting fans.

I don't believe that Leeds couldn't compete on salaries with any other club in ordinary circumstances. The Leeds business has grown substantially since the introduction of the cap. I don't believe that the club couldn't afford an inflation-linked increase in the salary cap.

It is in Hetherington's interests to supress the cap from a competitive perspective and I suspect that is where is position is based. Leeds has historically retained its talent better than other clubs and Hetherington has used the salary cap to press home that fact. That's not an approach I agree with, even if I can understand it.

And we're not talking about completely freeing clubs from the shackles of any sort of financial levelling. I'd fully support an FFP-style system, as I mentioned earlier. What I don't support is a "race to the bottom" which damages the core product the sport has to sell, perpetuating this cycle of the sport being starved of cash.

I think it's because most people including Sky are delusional about the product. It's simply not possible to attract new adults to Rugby league, as not as good to watch as was 10 years ago.
Over reffing
Zillion replays
Disciplinary panel
Terrible commentary
All killing the sport.........

Lobbing a load of hobby horses in to try and prop up a false hypothesis is unhelpful.

People said the same thing 10 years ago, and 10 years before that and 10 years before that. The game has been substandard dying since 1895 according to some

Agree with this

Ive always thought it very easy for Leeds fans, a big city club, to knock clubs for attendances and not being able to full cap.

Blaming clubs like Huddersfield etc for not having our gates or revenue seems ludicrious to me.

To be fair, they don't even have Cas' gates.

Think Gary is trying to pull on heart strings and get fans to dig deep for the club. He forgets we'be all been hit by this and we've endured years of under investment and a terrible spectacle on the playing side now.
Not sure sympathy levels are that high right now.....

Leeds have been champions more times in the last decade than we were in total between 1895 and 2004; some of the more fickle fans seem to have forgotten the element of humility that makes sport worthwhile.

Why do we have to label people into groups like 'fickle'.
Fair enough you don't agree, but labeling just kills discussion on the spot....