An unfair one at that. Whilst the Australian team can field a team that gets paid more than the English team the world club challenge will be as unfair as ever.

The English WCC finalist should be able to pick a few players from other super league teams to make it fair IMO.

Or we could have a double rollover the following year and call it the camelot world club challenge

Well done to the Australian governing body for having the balls to do it unlike certain other governing bodies that I wont mention.

But its not just £50k that needs to be repaid - fines and return of prize money is near enough £1m. What view do News Ltd have of this, they may decide that they want no further part and stop funding - i wouldn't want to be associated with a concern that have done what they have.

Or failing that it could have been put towards getting a decent England boss.

It would appear that we are sending an Under 20 squad to Australia to tour at the end of the season. The £50K should be used to help develop these young players for the future of our game.

Spot on, next time I think we'll have the FGB on the bench, Matt King instead of Delaney, oh who else and who says its the best on british soil? Maybe Darren Lockyer might be interested in winning the only thing that has evaded him in his great career. Going by Gilders rules we can have a fooking awesome team the next time we represent ourselves on the world stage. We could offer 2.5K per player from the 50K fund, not bad for a nights work. After all its not a super league or Nrl game so no rules on salary cap.

How many SL winner's rings or Challenge Cup winner's medals does he have?

And which Leeds players from the week before and week after are you willing to ditch?

Hear,hear! They don't mess about do they?

We could have beaten them with Scott Donald never mind Lockyer.

No, should not go back to sponsors they paid and got their monies worth and it is for this reason that the £660k is not going back to Telstra either. This £660k is going to be spread evenly between all NRL clubs and that seems very fair.

I also think that Leeds should get the £50k prize money, given it is not really the NRL's money to keep, and then be allowed to decide what they want to do with it. The players might not want the money now anyway and if Leeds decide to donate it somewhere, so be it.

Personally, I'd like to see the money go to Try Assist. I think Leeds will not keep the £50k if they get it. Hetherington will realise that giving the £50k away will generate much worth than £50k's worth of publicity!

What is it with all the looney responses about donating the prize money?

The money taken off them in the NRL is to be shared between all the NRL clubs, and rightly so. That is because they were cheated out of having the opportunity of winning that prize money due to what Melbourne did.

With regards the WCC, it has nothing to do with the rest of british rugby league except Leeds. Leeds earned the right to take part in that competition, put there bodies on the line, and earned it fairly. They lost the prize money to a team that had not earned the right fairly to keep it.

Only place that money should be returned is to Leeds Rhinos. What they choose to do with it thereafter is their perogative.

You really don't like people having an opinion do you.

I suspect you might be correct but still think GH and the boys should have the chance to decide.

I actually suspect that if GH did now want to give it to the players that he would have to ask the RFL board to exempt the payments from the cap. The rules are clear when it was prize money but if we are not going to be given the title of WC Champs and 2010 will now be blank, as looks likely, then this will be seen as a bonus payment and therefore count on the cap strictly speaking.

Calm down fella posters are only offering an opinion as to where "THEY" would donate/like to see the money go.

I can only think about that.

So what's the difference with my post and the others then?

Come off it....



They cheated to get to the final and they cheated on the day...and not just on the salary cap issue IMHO



psst I am taking about our antipodean cousins and not out neighbours down the road.

Anyone who condones a club cheating has no credibility whatsoever imo!

But it's just not over there in OZ that clubs have been found out is it ?

Teams over here have successfully got away with cheating the salary cap in the past

Some clubs have subsequently won a GF whilst over the limit, whilst others have avoided relegation, in both these instances the clubs involved have basically got away "scott free" and with very little punishment dished out in relation to the money that they would have lost had they been relegated or not won that final?

I applaud the stance taken by the NRL for punishing the Storm

Shame our governing body in this country couldn't do the same and have the b4lls to do the same, and on the same scale too!

why do clubs need to cheat the cap in order to win trophies or to avoid relegation?

A very interesting response from one of the game's greatest ever administrators, Gary Hetherington.

I wonder how Peter Hood might have responded?

Seems the players have already spoke about the 50k back.

I suspect he'd of followed through and then his head would of exploded!

What the Bulldogs did in 2002 and what Melbourne have done the last few years has been systematic abuse of their salary cap system.

Have we really seen the equivalent of that over here?

Which RFL/SL club have been found guilty of operating two sets of accounts?

Ive always felt that cheating is cheating
If you had contracts in place that had the potential to break the cap and then you did, that is cheating
If you break it by a small amount, that is cheating

a break of a fundamental rule should mean exclusion from winning any trophies, the next level of punishment would come in for breaches like Melbourne's

Did Wigan not sign Fielden when they were in a relagation battle to ease that fear, which took them over the following year?