Looking at the rules a while back, I noticed that it explicitly says that you can't de-register players to beat the overseas quota and non-fed rules. Without a RFL discretionary exemption, naturally.
It doesn't say anything equivalent in the salary cap rules. It doesn't say you [ican[/i, but my impression is that it is maybe possible to [ucarousel fed-trained players[/u. It was [isuggested[/i that Hull KR might have to do that to meet the club-trained minimum at one point. So basically, injured and well-paid unused players wouldn't count - unless you want them to, so you can tell the fans the club is spending to the cap.

Castlefords opinion of the matter: www.pontefractandcastlefordexpre ... -1-6466783

Castlefords opinion of the matter: www.pontefractandcastlefordexpre ... -1-6466783

seems a fairly over-written statement.

Surely "we couldnt afford it so didnt want others to have it" would have acheived the same thing?

Bit like the Bullmania thread. "We've gone bust. Deduct the points. Let's move on".

Is someone getting your coat?

If it's a company not connected to the club then that would be fine. But the moment that company is contacted by the club/owner then it is connected to the club and that money would count on the cap.

The not telling the RFL bit gets very sticky from a fraud point of view, same as Melbourne with the dual contracts. I'm not sure many clubs would be willing to take that risk, especially with RL being a small world in which people talk.

'strengthen the underbelly of our club' is strange phrasing. 'Foundations' would be better.

un·der·bel·ly
noun \ˈən-dər-ˌbe-lē\

: the bottom part of an object or an animal's body

: an area that is easy to attack or criticize

: a part of society, an organization, etc., that is hidden and usually unpleasant

As soon as a player plays 1 game for the club whatever he is paid for that year is counted on the cap. Otherwise, like you say, you'd have Sam Burgess for rounds 1-14 and then SBW for Rounds 15-27!

You can't possibly think it realistic that an RFL demand to see the books of Caddick Construction or SJM would ever be met with anything other than a howl of laughter

I always like a Cas press release. I wonder who does their PR for them.

Auditors can though.

no they can't. The Auditors wouldnt even get inside the building. These are companies turning over hundreds of millions of pounds, with hundreds if not thousands of employees, some of them are publicly listed.

They arent opening their books to an audit because Blake Solly asked them to.

Like Financial (Anything But) Fair Play, that would just lead to a 'rich get richer, poor get poorer' scenario.

I think the Golden Ticket idea isn't particularly very good but I do like the marquee player system. It doesn't even necessarily mean having to bring in a superstar. Wigan probably could have kept Tomkins and gone out to get another very good player if the system was in place.

I'm not sure that is the case, since we moved to the [ulive cap[/u system. There was an unusually intelligent and non-adversarial discussion between Rovers and Hull fans about this on their board a while ago.
What I took from it was:
You can't exceed the cap at any given moment - meaning you can't 'save it up' and use more later in the year, for example. Club's are not given an allowance at the begining of the year, to 'use up'. In those circumstances if a player moves mid-season it would be unreasonable for both clubs to have to count all of his annual wage.
So the cap is £1.8m per year, but also (roughly) £36k per week or just over £5k per day. It is assessed constantly for the top 25 [iregistered[/i earners.
As so often, the rules are a little opaque. So it is only really a theory. But for me it is one of the more rational (partial)explanations for how two clubs, both 'spending the up to cap', can end up with squads of quite different quality.

Many years ago I was in a Casino watching Roulette and actually saw an East Asian Grocer place £5000 on Black and £5,000 on Red. Red won and he then cashed all chips and asked for a cheque so he could declare as Gambling Winnings. Very clever eh?

Until it comes out green

So is it the fault of Leeds, Wigan and Warrington that have people who know what they're doing and how to generate a profit as well as marketing the team and bringing in big sponsors?

Warrington secured EMIRATES ffs, if the rich get richer it's only because they work bloody hard at it, incentivise clubs to get off their backside, the more they bring in the more they can put out, but at the end of the day everyone is working at X% so it's fair as long as you can generate income.

From what I understand, the top 25 players salary cap values are assessed as soon as the contract is lodged with the RFL and that counts on the clubs salary cap. The players beyond the top 25 only count when they play a game. But de-registering a player wouldn't affect the clubs salary cap. The only way it would give the club more cap space is by the player moving clubs.
But like you say the rules are a bit vague on it.

I never said it would. But if Leeds were paying a player through Caddick Construction and NOT declaring that to the RFL then they'd be committing fraud, ala Melbourne with the dual contracts. I don't think any club here has the appetite to take on that kind of risk. All it would need is one disgruntled player or employee to whistleblow.

As I said, RL is a small world.

They wouldnt be committing fraud. They may be breaking the salary cap, but they arent committing a legal offence.

and besides, a disgruntled player can make all the allegations he wants, they need proof and i would highly doubt the RFL fancied litigation with Caddick construction, or could in any way, shape or form have any legal strength to punish the Leeds club for the actions of Caddick Construction.

Caddick Construction are free to pay whoever they want, whatever they want, for whatever they want. Mrs Player X is free to earn whatever she wants, from whoever she wants. The RFL have no control over either of them, and cannot realistically hope to oblige the player, or the club to declare a relationship between a different business and a different person.

regardless, even on a practical leve, how many companies do you think someone like Caddick or Lenegan hold shares in? What if Caddick owns shares in WH smiths and Mrs Player X gets a job stacking shelves there, are the RFL policing that? Are the RFL expecting Leeds Rhinos to declare a relationship on the cap there? no of course not, it would none of Leeds Rhinos business and they couldnt hope to force the player to divluge that information to them.

Well, yes they would be, I imagine all the tax returns for players are filed with the rfl, as well as year end financial statements, and so any extra payments to a player (through whatever means) would either show up on either of those two documents - in which the rfl would investigate further, leading to the end of the deception, or they're left off, in which case it's fraud for not declaring it to the tax man.

Why have we now invented that they are committing tax fraud?

It would be very simple.

Im a club owner, I own the My club, and a multitude of companies, some as joint ventures, some as PLC's some as sole owner, some as shareholder.

I pay player A £100k, i pay all his tax, NI and everything all above board and taxed correctly. The player and club declares to the RFL that this is how much they earn and this is how much it costs on the Cap.

Through one of my other companies, i pay Player A's wife £200k. I pay tax, NI and everything in this. The RFL asks player A's wife to declare her earnings, she says "sod off Mr Solly, im not an RL player, my earnings are my private information and nothing to do with you". The RFL approach my company I say " Mr Solly, i have a legal obligation to keep this information private, I cannot disclose my employees private information to you, please go away"

It's not a question of fault. And the incentives already exist - but it is very hard to replicate the fanbase of Leeds and Wigan. Or achieve what Warrington have without significant initial 'investment'. I don't think there's a good case for stopping other clubs' benefactors building up their team/club, however they see fit. Now, you can extend that logically to a 'scrap the cap entirely' argument. Which is fair enough. Entrenching status at a fairly random snapshot moment in the game's history, isn't IMO. You're asking clubs to work harder, while tying their hands.
What the RFL have done already is made it so any spending on players' wages beyond a certain % of income has to be covered by directors putting cash in to buy new shares. Which is sensible and would work well with your model.

That sounds like the same sort of rhetoric people throw at benefits claimants!

The only thing that system would do is allow certain clubs to maintain the status quo. My club, Salford, have obviously had to have a lot of money thrown at us to get to where we are at the moment and things are starting to be put in place to allow us to start increasing revenue. We've secured increased sponsorship (apparently there are also representatives from over 50 businesses attending the game tonight against Saints) and with the team hopefully turning around its recent on field fortunes, we can hopefully bring in better deals, more fans and money.

If your idea came to fruition there would be no Marwan Koukash involved in rugby league. It wouldn't be worth big money investors coming into the game because they wouldn't be able to challenge the top clubs. In modern sport for success you need to be spending money and in rugby league you need to be spending pretty much up to the cap. Your idea would simply mean those select clubs continuing to pull away from the chasing pack. Limiting what can be spent like you suggest would be damaging to the game. Note that that doesn't mean I don't agree with having a salary cap, because despite the fact that Koukash would get rid of it if he had his way, I still think we need it.

In that scenario, the wife would have to declare her earnings to the government. Rfl requests income tax info for the house of <player> from the government. Compare to financial statements, and salary cap declaration. Any mismatch investigate further. It is tax fraud, if and only if, players wife doesn't declare her earnings from the club. Else it's regular old salary cap cheating.

I'm not saying it's impossible to do it through this method, but it has to be a little bit more complex than that. Else do you not think someone would already be doing it?

Also, given that Wigan "breaking the spirit of the cap" is considered by some on here to be one of the greatest crimes of super league history (rivalled only by joynts "voluntary" tackle) - why are we now trying to get around it?