Cool. So as he is one of the people involved in the decisions regarding the salary cap maybe you should trust his judgement that it is in fact a good thing.
Maybe he understands that SL requires 14 strong competitive teams. That all the teams in SL are benefiting from the rising standards and increased competition. That this would be impossible without the salary cap. I expect his business experience means he knows the devastating effect removing the cap would have on the competition. He knows Leeds need competition on the field to be successful off it and the salary cap is key to that. He probably also knows that SL clubs are not in direct competition off the field.

Continues to amaze me how many people still assume the salary cap is black-and-white and a level playing field.

Hypothetical Example 1: you have a "marquee" player whose image rights might be deemed to be worth quite a bit. Your chairman has a wealthy pal who is not a sponsor or otherwise connected with the club who for whatever reason is happy to pay a lot for those image rights.. As in a LOT. Strangely enough, the player seems so happy with that deal (outside the cap) that he agrees to play for the club for a less than many would expect him to.

Hypothetical Example 2: as 1, but substitute big independent business who see serious value in having that player front for their marketing. Think Gillette or Tissot as historic examples, although this crops up time again in other, less major, situations. Like Harris and the third party who was paying his image rights, where the existence of this only became public seemingly because the club apparently accepted a advert worth hundreds of pounds only from the third party, in error we understand. And this brought the payment into the cap and contributed to a cap breach, seemingly. And again, where funnily enough you might find the player is then happy to play for less than he might have done otherwise, and maybe you find the club has "assisted" the player in finding the third party willing to pay? Dunno.

Hypothetical Example 3: image rights again, but this time paid to the player's Guernsey-registered personal service company, by the club as part of his package. Paying this way has been MUCH cheaper than getting the same net amount to the player through salary. No problems with the concept. But what happens where a club pays a far higher proportion of the package as image rights than most reasonable people (and HMRC) would expect? More bang for your bucks...except if the proportion is ruled as being excessive then there will likely be retrospective tax penallties. Which (for reasons I am happy to explain if I have to) would amount to retrospective salary cap breach.

Hypothetical Example 4: similar to 2, but read Pension Payments or payments to Employee Benefit Trusts. Lets assume perfectly legally and within the rules. But you avoid tax and NICs so the player gets the same net for a lower gross cost to the club. Open to all no doubt, but probable some clubs take advantage more than others for a variety of reasons.

Hypothetical Example 5: one no SL club or its owner would ever engage in, of course: money paid to player that does not go through the club. Be it the infamous "brown envelope" or (say) an owner or shareholder paying money into a bank account offshore somewhere from similar. But we don't need to worry about that one do we?

Hypothetical Example 6: money paid to an overseas player returning home, using devices like the Singapore Sling to enable (you hope...) the player to avoid tax in both the UK and in his home country (he is resident in neither when the payment is made) and so meaning less cost to the club in both salary and NICs.

Above all a bit simplistic, yes, and the extent to which clubs may choose to employ them will depend on things like the amount of risk the club is prepared to run, the financial acumen of the board and their contacts, and of course how smart a club is in recruiting a player who might be receptive to a (legal) deal structured in an especially tax-efficient way. And as I said, all hypothetical scenarios except where I expressly indicated otherwise.

Now I know that may all be very boring, but what it aims to illustrate is that fitting spend within cap is more of a dark art than science, and the way clubs choose to structure packages can have a significant impact on how much player value they can actually accommodate within the so-called cap. And apart from example 5, probably legally provided staying within the rules or within the bounds of what would be considered reasonable.

of course Paul Caddick loves the salary cap, i bet he wishes he could have one in the construction trade aswell



he would be an idiot not to love it, it keeps his workers wages down, it means he can blame something other than himself for not paying them their true market worth, whilst pocketing the profits.

Running a business would be a peice of in salary capped world, you just pay your workers less and less until you are profitable and then sit back and pretend you are a well run company!

the only people who benefit from a salary cap are the owners,

and how benefits from this salary cap voodoo? no one

why not simply allow owners to pay what they see fit, but put things in place to make sure clubs are still doing what we want them to do (developing young players and giving them a shot)

And the fans. And the sponsors. And Sky. Oh and the players because the fans, sponsors and Sky all bring more money into the game which is mainly spent on salaries.

Bollox.

No salary cap, and we end up with one or two very wealthy individuals buying a team of superstars, with no-one else getting a look-in. Sky would not pay for a competition totally dominated by a small handful of teams, and neither would the fans or sponsors. So soon all you would have would BE a competition comprising a small handful of teams. And then an owner calls it a draw or pops his clogs or gets divorced or gets the religio0n or whatever, and his team is immediately kaput...

Yup. What he said.

Seriously , has Lee Smith stated he is leaving Leeds because he wants more money off them to stay ?

yes, the players definately benefit from capping their wages, its so clear now, earning less is what players want, its why they play our game, to earn less money!

and sponsors, they love it, they cant get enough of being associated with a 2nd class game! being linked to mediocre wages really help them sell that dream! Just think, they flock to RL, they want their names to be synonymous with earning slightly more than the average person

and lets not forget sky, oh ive heard rupert murdoch is buzzing off his tits that Nick Scruton had to switch clubs to earn £500 a month more

.................yeah, there's no sponsorship whatsoever in the game is there?

super league is dominated by a small number of clubs, and that number has got smaller the longer we have had SL,

its quite embarrassing how emotionally scarred this game seems to be because wigan were successful for a little while

comparatively no!

we have very few blue chip sponsors and comparatively little money coming in from sponsorship

Because there are considerably less willing rich owners than there are clubs looking for such owners. And in the present economic climate that situation is likely only to worsen. And if it became a free-for-all so some of those rich owners could spend what they wanted, then it is probable many of thos other rich owners would say sod this and exit.

If, say, Caddick found himself in need of funds (reason irrelevant) and sold out to a private equity vehicle (they haven't entirely gone away), who needed to squeeze maximum cash flow from the club for minimum investment to service and repay the loans, and if say the competition was still owned by guys pouring in the cash, and if this change of circumstances meant Leeds could no longer keep anywhere near up with those other clubs in player salary spend, would you still be such a keen advocate of no-cap?

...............and if we did away with the SC this would change?

So you want to make it worse? Is there any reason to believe it wouldn't be worse without the salary cap?

yes, because the cap doesnt equal and even or equal game, it never has done, not in any sport, any where

the reason we dont have an equal game, is because we dont produce enough quality players, its because the step down below the best players is too big,

the reason Australia is so strong isnt the SC, but the fantastic player pathways they have,

the key to evening up the league isnt the SC, all that does is stop players finding their true worth, but to get more players of sufficient quality,

is there any reason to think it would be worse?

is there any reason to think maybe some clubs would be closer to saints and leeds if they could spend a little more rather than further away?

no, which was my point,

the SC doesnt benefit sponsors, the sponsorship of the game and the SC are largely independant of each other

That would explain why the likes of Hudds and HKR and Wakey and Cas did so dreadfully this year.and Wire and Bulls and Hull so well then? And why next year the table will probably look very different again to this year?

So you are saying we should not artificially try to ' even ' things up between clubs ?

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they were awful, the entire league was awful this year, Leeds won the league by four points without getting out of third gear until the play offs, saints finished second despite being pretty poor

and yes, for the third year in a row, we have the same champions, we have the same two grand finalists,

two clubs which between them, in the past 6 years, have won the league by a record points total, scored a record amount of points, won 5 of the 6 grand finals and 6 of the 6 league leaders shields, and 4 of the 6 challenge cups,and they have taken 9 of the possible 12 grand final berths

the fact bradford were a bit pants this season doesnt make it a competitive year, Leeds and Saints were the top two all season, and no one really got close,

someone else won the challenge cup though, two new teams in the final, that must show its competitiveness yeah? and these were two small clubs werent they? not backed by a rich owner? only surviving because of the cap?

as a principle, if it can be avoided no we shouldnt,

we should allow clubs to be run by those that own them

but there are certain things we need clubs to do (i.e, invest in spreading the game, in youth development and in marketing the game) that left to their own devices they probably wouldnt do to the level we needed.

So we can put things in place to encourage (or force) clubs to do these things,

but 'evening' up the league artificially is wrong, because you cant 'even' up the league artificially without punishing what has been successful (by stopping them or hampering them in their pursuit of more success) and rewarding what hasnt

so a hypothesis not backed up by history

thats some great evidence there