Cas took action against Sale, Solomona and Clarke. They were all respondants in the case brought by Castleford. The settlement is to cease legal action against all three.
The RFL's opportunity is to ban Andy Clarke from representing RL players.

I really feel that it is the responsibility of SL clubs to refuse to work with Clarke not the governing body to ban him. How can you possibly have any trust or good faith whilst in negotiations with him?

Read the lengthy statement on the Cas site - Sale offered 50k and we told them to shove it up their , essentially.

Seems they have swept this one under the carpet.

Castlefords decision to avoid going to court and securing a legal precedent will come back and bite another club in the backside. Sale obviously expected to pay a fee for him in the long run and have secured an international class winger for a fraction of what a RU developed player would cost. I only hope that the club which is bitten is Castleford again as they were the ones who had the chance to stop it happening once and for all but buckled when someone flashed the cash in front of them

A few things:
1. You say Solomona cost a fraction of what a RU developed player would cost. Can you name other "RU developed" players costing in excess of 200k?
2. The total cost to Sale is in the region of 400k, which I think most would agree is far more than the player is worth and probably far more than they would have had to pay Castleford for the player if they had gone about their business properly.
3. Cas did the complete opposite of buckling. The club spent in the region of 100k in legal expenses to fight their case, and there is never a guarantee of winning.
4. Even if Cas had won in court, they may not have recovered their legal costs. They may have ended up spending more in legal fees than they were awarded in compensation.
5. Sale clearly didn't expect to pay a fee for him, otherwise they wouldn't have spent a significant amount of money trying to defend the claim.

Castleford have absolutely done the right thing in the interests of the club and the game as a whole. It is now clear than RU cannot sign in-contract RL players for nothing.

Yeah - Tom Johnstone could be the next RU target. I just hope Wakey have as much steel as Tigers to defend a case.

Wouldn't be surprised if Steve Diamond loses his job in the aftermath.

1. There are a ridiculous amount of RU players that are valued at over 200k, and thats not even factoring in several years of player development costs

2. 400k is expensive for a league player but rather cheap for an international class union player

3. Cas buckled, they weren't convinced they would win so took the money and ran instead of defending the sport in court

4. The club may have lost more in legal fees, but had they won it would have created a legal precedent which stops it happening again

5. Sale have money to burn and would have set a target of probably around 500k before they were worried, they defended the claim in the hope that Cas would back down under the worry of not guaranteeing a win in court which is exactly what happened. It's quite a regular thing to happen, even car insurance companies play the same trick.

Castleford have done exactly the right thing in the short term interests of the club, but they have done the absolute wrong thing in the long term interests on the game. What happens if a RU comes and does the same thing to a championship club who aren't fortunate enough to have 100k to spend on legal fees? There's no legal precedent set, so that player would be able to walk away from the league club knowing he won't be chased

Not really, yawnion clubs are free to sign out of contract RL players perfectly legally (eg Charnley) - just as league clubs are free to sign yawnion ones. Now money obviously talks so with the current wage structures in each sport its going to be heavily in one direction, particularly as there isn't a great demand in RL for overweight players with poor core skills and limited endurance in any case.

Anyway well done to Cas, did their homework well and there's no need to further enrich lawyers which is all continued action would achieve. Ironically the success Eden has had probably weakened their bargaining power slightly as it shows that Solomona is not exactly indispensable.

However I would like to see the RL to follow up strongly on this. First by highlighting in the media what utterly dishonest grubs Sale are - though I suspect the Goebbels inspired yawnion press to sweep this one under the carpet. Second, as many have already suggested, ban Andy Clarke from all involvement with RL.

What utter nonsense. We have a governing body whose job it is to protect the sport, not any individual club. Castleford could have gone bankrupt to uphold a moral point, but then I'm guessing you'd like that as your club would potentially benefit from such stupidity. There may not be a legal precedent, but players & agents will think twice before pulling such a stunt again, especially if RL unite & refuse to work with Clarke again.

1. Can you name any? How many players have transferred for a fee of 200k+?
2. As above. How many 'international class' union players have transferred for 400k+?
3. Cas clearly thought they would win, or wouldn't have spent 100k on legal fees to fight the case. They have made sure they have received a fee they feel they are entitled to.
4. Maybe. But the precedents are there already with players who have crossed codes whilst under contract. It wouldn't have created a new precedent, it would have maintained the status quo that a fee has to be paid for a player under contract.
5. If the set a target of 500k they are stupid.

As above, if the same thing happens again the precedent is already set. Fees have to be paid for players under contract. It wouldn't be Cas' fault if a club does not have the money to enforce it.

Regarding Clarke surely it doesn't need the clubs to cooperate to get him out. A simple RFL ban would do. The NRL has suspended or banned dodgy agents in the past and other sports have no problem getting rid of undesirable elements with long or permanent bans, eg horse racing, without any legal come back.

Why is it up to Cas to defend the sport? It's up to Cas to defend themselves, it's up to the RFL to defend the sport.

I can't imagine it would be too difficult to just start adding clauses into contracts from now on that explicitly protect clubs against this kind of thing so it's not really a case of open season on all RL players.

It's not open season anyway and no other clauses are needed.
Fees have always had to be paid for players under contract.
Sale tried it on in the hope Cas would whimper and give up. Cas didn't and have received an acceptable fee.
The issue is that it seems players from RL can be registered to play RU before the fee is either agreed or set in court. As such, we can't stop any player leaving for RU. However, it wouldn't have been in the court's power to change this anyway.
I think the RFU should not have allowed Sale to register Solomona until it was clear Sale had agreed a fee with his former club. But this is for the RFL to negotiate, not Castleford, and not even the court could enforce this.

Great outcome for us IMO. It was more a matter of principle for mine, so the money is a bonus. Plus, its a lot of money for a club like us. We are not a cash rich club and so this is a massive boost for us financially. The only thing that disappoints me about the whole thing is that not one of Sale, Clarke or the Snake have issued any sort of apology. That would have meant a lot but, hey, not to be. Onwards and upwards.

I'm just glad Eden looks highly likely to break his record pretty much straight away. Wipe his stain of a name from the record books.

Then in a few years it will hopefully be Denny who???

Predictable anti-Cas bilge. Crack on

Oh do shut up. If the sport was happy to fund Cas' legal action than maybe you'd have a point. But they weren't, and you don't.



There is a legal precedent set - because Sale settled and in doing so admit they were wrong. If the case had gone to court and Cas won, that still wouldn't stop the scenario you suggest because the Championship club still couldn't afford the legal fees.

Exactly. The RFL stated on numerous occasions that they had given cas their full backing. However, at the point where we had spent 70k on legal fees Steve gill confirmed that they hadn't contributed a penny to the cause.

I'd love to know what they have done....

They could have dealt with Andy Clarke by now....

That bit says it all.

It's a classic hey!



. Now, lets say that a Union club comes in and signs Johnstone while he's injured, behind Wakefields back. Would Wakefield have the b@lls to take things through? I can virtually guarantee that if they waved even £100K at them Carter would snap their hand off!

Decent result all in all for Cas plus they have hardly missed him anyway have they?

nope, not missed him at all. Plus, we got him for nowt don't forget, so great result

Yep, pretty decent result indeed!