Yes, he *could* do that, but that would make him a saint (no pun intended) - most people like him (and yes, Abramovich is a bit of a daft example, for the case of Rugby League, we only need think about a guy with a few millions to splash about), want to live the dream - i.e. they DO want to distort the competition. Actually most fail to acheive it. Abramovich suceeded for a season or two, but not forever.

What really distorts competition in football isn't really the standard of the top clubs' first XI, but the number of international superstars sitting on premier league benches (which the smaller clubs can't afford to do) .

No matter how rich Chelsea or City or whoever were, as long as they could only buy (say) the best 15 players in the world, and the rest had to be self-trained or vastly cheaper, then you'd allow the rich guys the pleasure of thinking they owned the 'best' players in the world, but also stop them dominating totally, because there just isn't *that* much difference between the 'best' 15 and the 'second best' 15, or the 10th best 15 for that matter.

I'm not advocating the removal of any form of salary control, rather suggesting that there's something wrong if we're literally blocking money out the game, even if that money was constrained by rules which made it 'safe' - i.e. couldn't bust a club.

Unfortunately it's unrealistic to expect RL to grow as a nice even competition - you'll always have breakaway leaders who 'set the pace', but you *can* structure things to try to extract the best out of that phenomena - for example 'taxing' the overspend for grassroots development - and you can structure things to prevent extreme distortion of competition and the sad phemonoma of healthy world-class internationals sitting out games.

I accept that distortion is a bigger risk in RL and needs more control (e.g. a *very* small 'high-paid' squad limit). Two reasons: firstly there's far less players to go around, so the 'best' 13 RL players are significantly better than say the 10th best 13 (even worldwide, not just in the UK). Also the nature of the game itself makes it harder to 'equalize', because small-ish gaps in standard generally lead to big gaps in results. In football, Man Utd *can* have a tough night away to a championship side, and indeed lose to them. But for Warrington RL to lose to a Championship RL side would be almost unthinkable. In football, almost any premiership team can pull off a result on their day, and whilst it's true that even in football the same sides get to the top - it's because there's a lot of games in a season to even out the anomalies.

Most attempts to control salaries, etc. have good points but also unintended consequences. Over-emphasizing the need to chase 'equality' can easily lead to the unintended effect of dragging down the overall standard.

I don't think 'cap or no cap?', or even 'what's the right cap?' is the right debate - rather 'can we design a system of salary control which accurately targets what we're trying to acheive?'

I'm not sure there's a clear consensus in the game about what exactly the cap is for? Is it for stopping clubs going bust, or is it to equalize competition? Even if you answer "Both those things!", one can still ask the question "OK, so what's the relative importance of the two?" It matters, because a system heavily emphasizing equality may have a different set of rules than one that was much more focused on finances.

Explained better than I managed. Spot on.

Has it not?

What two MASSIVE clubs who are known throughout the entire world?
God forbid we would have teams like that in our sport......

It says something when only 34 people know Wigan, the team with the biggest profile in the sport on Pointless

Salary cap was originally brought in to level up the league and make all clubs be even

Its not worked

Ask Bradford if it as helped them before the salary cap they where a top four team they spent big on good players and made profits, now they are struggling because its too even

Warrington are the club that have benefitted the most as they have played the salary cap the best by having a brilliant owner who knows how to work the cap by releasing players on loan.

Ask Harlequins or Wakefield if the Cap has helped them NO

It was set to £1.8m in 2001, and reduced to £1.65m a few years ago when tax and NI was deducted from the SC calculations.

That is mis-management and poor attendances, not the salary cap.

But that wasnt the question he asked was it. He asked if the Salary Cap had helped. Having an SC isnt neutral, it isnt the default position, it needs to have positive effects to be justified. It needs to be helping if it is to be kept.

This is just bizarre, you can't go claiming that the SC has levelled things down instead of up and then claim it hasn't helped the smaller clubs.

Of course it's helped the likes of Quins & Wakefield. It's helped them by keeping them more competitive than they otherwise would have been as evidenced by their league positions/playoff appearances over the years that wouldnt have happened without a salary cap.
Just as a few examples from my own club. The salary cap forced Leeds to release the likes of Ashley Gibson & Jodie Broughton to Salford who otherwise could probably have earned more being squad backup at Leeds and playing 10 or so first team games a year for Leeds. The cap forced Leeds to release them so Salford has benefitted from the cap. The cap also forced Leeds to send the likes of Luke Ambler, Kyle Amor & Ben Jones-Bishop out on loan, something which Quins & Wakefield benefitted from.

I'm receptive to the argument that the cap brings the top downwards and doesn't help us in the short term compete with Union or the NRL in terms of wages, but it most certainly does benefit the smaller clubs.

Doesn't that mean its actually gone up then if over 20% (in tax & NI) now isn't counted?

So you believe it self-evident that smaller clubs benefit from a decline in the standards of the league.

If there was no SC, leeds would still have released Broughton and Gibson because of the emergence of Hall and Watkins, they would have still loaned out Ambler, Amor and BJB because they wanted them to have first team games, thats why they werent recalled when we had injury problems.

The SC has left league where we cannot compete for the big names, we cant use the big names to attract those with nothing more than a passing interest and it has led to a decline in the quality of the league.

The SC did not stop Leeds taking Gareth Ellis, Hull taking Westerman, or Saints taking LMS.

Some counts, some doesnt (hence the tax issues we are having now). When the RFL changed it, it was portrayed by them, that the change kept the SC the same in real terms. My memory maybe incorrect and it may have just been NI which was removed from the cap.

Regardless, this would ignore the massive effect inflation would have had on the value of that £1.65m over more than a decade.

Mostly bollox.

Bradford's demise is directly attributable to not having a sugar daddy, or a wealthy owner when it mattered, and therefore not being able to compete financially with those clubs who do. Its as simple as that. Bradford used the Sky money far more astutely in the early days of SL, investing in the people and activities that built the platform for the early years success. In particular, they did NOT get into the nonsense of paying stupid salaries to players like certain other clubs did. But the club did NOT make ongoing profits. Without the Odsal settlement, the club would have hit financial retrenchment several years earlier.

It had fekk all to do with the salary cap "making it more even" and everything to do with other clubs using wealthy owners' money (along with helpful councils, unlike our bunch of useless useless donkeys) to pay for what Bradford had to fund from within the club. Other clubs have been able to seriously outspend Bradford OFF the park. Where the cap is irrelevant. Their good fortune, our misfortune. Life's a bitch, and its currently our turn to be on the wrong end of it.

My personal opinion (as those who have seem my posts on the subject before will know) is that the salary cap has the potential (I'll leave it at that) to be optional where you have a wealthy owner. There are too many ways to circumvent it if you are so-minded, and have the financial resources.

It is no different to Soccer and other sports (other than maybe in scale) - the future belongs to the clubs with the money, and its the wealthy owners who have made and will make the difference.

I think this would be a dream for the RFL, but only if 14 mega-rich investors, or even 6 mega rich investors wanted to come into the game. We have none.

Now then, a year or two ago Boots n all had a discussion about the salary cap. Phil Clarke had an interesting idea (his first?). I think he maybe got it from an American sport?

If a club wanted to go say £200k over the cap - they could only do it on a 1:5 ratio. They would have to put in £1m - they would keep £200k and the other £800k would be shared amongst the other 13 clubs. An expensive option for the club wishing to do it but the other clubs get benefit as well. And those clubs not quite at salary cap level would have an extra £60k to pay a player.

And we'll never know.

As I say, I'm pretty sure this comes from Basketball. Don't know about the ratio.

But is allowing clubs to buy titles they weren't good enough to achieve with a level playing field really progress for the sport?

Wasnt it Bradford who spent most of there salary cap on Matt Orford and then realised that they cant put a decent team on the park. One man does not make a team and you cannot put all your eggs in one basket

I remember speaking to quite a few Bradford Supporters who believed they where going to win the league that year because of one man

We either want a average league or a Super League

My choice would be a Super League with Superstars earning good money

and its inevitable that the 'bigger' clubs would find themselves with the superstars, but a lot of people in the game can't stand that thought, and would genuinely prefer a mediocre sport with 'level-playing field'. Unfortunately, the RFL seems to think the same.

If a person GENUINELY values 'level-playing field' over commercial success, I actually respect their view, because although its not what I want for the game, at least its a coherent argument. What I don't respect is the fools who think that they can have it both ways, and think that the secret of success is to hold back the best clubs, whilst the rest somehow 'catch up' commercially. Ain't EVER going to happen.

Bringing over Union players would actually help, because the top clubs wouldn't want most of them, so we could use them to put bums on seats at the smaller clubs.

I think most people want a Super League, but more than a 3 or 4 team Super League which is all it would be with no salary cap.

The reality with Bradford is that their philosophy under Caisley to attract crowds with the most marketable players in the game playing in a quality team just wasn't compatible in a salary cap system. When the likes of Henry / Robbie Paul, Vainikolo, Lowes, Fielden etc move on and the players aren't there to replace them, then the performances drop and the crowds drop. That isn't the salary cap harming Bradford, that's Bradford not having a system that is 'compatible' with a salary cap system.

Thats one way of looking at it