Again, as always with your posts, a fair bit to "unpack"

"2 Decades" refers to my thoughts on this persons post. You don't have to be a registered user to 'read' posts, but you carry on chasing alice down the rabbit hole

You've so far accused me of being 5 previous posters on here and thus far, you're so far away it's hilarious



In between 1998 and 2019......wigan had averages that started with 15. In that period, wigan had a scare, but have pretty much made the play offs nearly every year. The real question is when Lenegan took over he seemed hell bent on getting more fans in......now it seems that 11,420 which is there recorded average for 2019 is somehow acceptable a decade after 15,668 was achieved. 4,200 and change missing per game is bloody shocking and you trying to defend it is further proof of your naivety.

Maybe next time your discussing this with your chum, you could ask him what the 46,200 fewer fans in 2019 as opposed to 2008 cost him and the club

Do what the football league clubs are allowed to do. Their owners are allowed to put money in, but it has to be in the form of a donation so that its taxable income and hits the P&L, rather than sitting on the balance sheet as a loan to the owner

Time for the cap to go then.

Simply treading water going nowhere isn't helping the game at all.

Don't know really, other than maybe scrapping the cap.

I'm not a Chairman and I do applaud the fact that so many of them put so much time, effort and cash into the game but at the moment, it feels a bit like death by a thousand cuts.

No cap helped Wigan to win just about everything for years.

You know it's far more complicated than that - No Cap didn't "Help" Wigan, it didn't "Stop" them though.
It also dragged British RL of it's backside, competing with AUS/NZ more closely (Possibly as close as it's been in 50years), brought international stars to the game from all over the world, from other sports (Accepted it was easier then, although in essence the money we need to pay now, if the cap had been increased, would still attract some of those players and help retain them), more Media and public conscious exposure etc. etc.
RL was stagnating from the late 60's through the 70's and into the early 80's in a lot of ways, and certainly the results on the field were reflecting that (and I guess crowds also). It took 10 years from the mid 80's to at least partly recover those 20 years.

I'm having the same arguments now that I was having 30 years ago
People more interested in having a good atmosphere and it looking good on TV having 11k in a 12k stadium for a semi final
30 years people moaning for semi finals that we had 25/30/35k in a 40/50k stadiums because it looks bad???
Internationals at Wembley with 45/50/55k on and moaning, yet patting ourselves on the back 30 years later when we get 20k on in a 22k stadium

On the field people/clubs moaning about 1 team winning everything (not the complete argument) but forgetting that in reality all they did was apply the latest/best methods and stole a march on the rest of the clubs who were 10/15 years behind Australia at the time.

The game is stagnating because in too many areas we are artificially manipulating a Level playing field, trying to make everything equal for everyone, and certainly IMO doing it to the detriment of the game as a whole

I'm in favour of a cap in Some ways, but the mis-management from a game perspective over the last 15/20 years or so has led to the point where the game is going to have to take drastic measures to get some kind of parity.
As I said previously on an earlier post - if we increased the cap 10/15% per year now it would take us 15 years to catch up with NRL/RU and that's if they stood still.
I accept that some clubs would struggle with that NOW, but the option of doing nothing is leading to the situation were in now.
We have to Do something Now, as every year we don't it will get harder and harder to do something in future.

Do we want to manipulate a level playing field and accept that inwardly from inside our little bubble that being 50% of what others achieve.
Or do we want to incentivise clubs/performance to be the best it can be?

There wasn't a cap in place when Wigan were relegated either.

Wigans renaissance came about on the back of a dedicated board of directors, ably led by Uncle Mo.

Great post

Again, Where's the money coming from to increase the cap?

I think you've just answered the problem of the last 20 years
You want to sit back and wait for it to happen before thinking about how we should do it

Why not tell teams/clubs that it's up to them to either :-
a/ Go out and get it, find it, attract new investors, increase their own crowds, reduce costs if that's the way they want to do it - But either way it's up to you all to go out and earn the money needed to allow you to spend an increasing cap

Or

b/ Do nothing

Doing practically nothing for the last 15+years or so has achieved what?

I'm never quite sure why people talk about the Wigan winning everything era was so bad.
They are not my team but I loved watching those superstars play.

It brought others up to the mark too.
Of course there are other problems in the game. But having an elite team playing great rugby, with personalities that were recognised outside the sport isn't one of them.

It wasn't bad perse, but it did almost bankrupt a lot of the clubs, including Wigan.

And yet since the cap was brought In to stop teams going bust Bradford have managed to go bust more than once and Widnes and Wakefield went Into administration.

Ergo, the cap is pointless and has done nothing other than decimate the game in this country

again the cap was introduced to try and equal the higher skill player to balance out the league from being dominated by one or two teams, guess what clubs can go bust spending half the cap



your right it hasn't worked because the find ways around the cap

Except 3 clubs have still dominated .

I know you think it’s working because your club. on the back of going into administration and making false promises about a stadium to get a licence managed to finish in the top half for once, but it really isn’t

Correct. But I beg of you don't take the bait

The issue with the cap is that it was left unchanged for so long, which was ridiculous and that when clubs breach the cap, the penalties are negligible.
A salary cap seems to work ok in Union and the NRL but, dont let that prevent you from making petty points about certain clubs.
You really ought to get you facts right too

You could have used one word there instead of six

The marque is nothing in comparison to inflation we would have a cap of 3m now if it had. When we realise that 3m in today's money buys of 1.6m of 1998 talent we can start to understand why the games quality has dropped so much !! Weve list over a million pounds worth of talent in each squad meaning we are attracting second rate players in general and lower home grown talent because it's not offering a great salary for a top flight sport.

What facts have I got wrong?

The issue with the cap isn’t that it’s stayed low. The finances of the sport demanded that. There’s no point comparing the cap to average uk wages without also comparing it to club incomes that have stagnated at best.

We need a cap that incentivises the things we want. So some sort of relationship to club income (not including director or any other loans) plus some incentive to grow a clubs infrastructure.

Maybe something like:
- 50% of clubs income
- above £3m a club must also spent a certain % on marketing and a certain % goes to grass roots.

Obviously the figures and rules can be debated but some kind of system that incentivises financial and infrastructure growth of the club itself. It doesn’t prevent a wealthy owner from ploughing money in to get success but means they can’t load the club with debt and loans. And also allows wealthier clubs to spend more but are essentially taxed to help the wider game?

The cap has it's place when used in the right way. For a while it brought a level of financial certainty. Unfortunately the cap did not change and so became a disincentive for investment and innovation. Brash though he was, Koukash was willing to invest and certainly improved our image. Now we have a game sliding towards semi professionalism that cannot find enough new stars because the wages that we offer are equivalent to those earned by shop workers whilst the risks are off the scale.

Hmm....I don't get this.
Koukash, like Argyle talked a great talk, but does anyone know who was on the marquee ticket at Salford? Does anyone believe SBW saw 1% of his supposed contracted wage?

This is from wiki...so pinch of salt required...but



Here we are in 2021....Salford are looking a fair bet to be involved in a relegation battle in 2022, are possibly on the move to a 5k capacity stadium and other than a shiny new badge, haven't much else to show for his "supposed" investment....a Grand Final hammering, followed by 2 covid seasons and now potential relegation with a coach who knows all about the championship....

Back to the cap. It is doubtful that at least 7 of the current SL clubs aren't at the cap.....raising it will just inflate wages and make the other 5 clubs grip pn the comp stronger.

However, REMOVING IT, would level the playing field dramatically......Koukash could then get re-involved and show us the money he claimed he wanted to invest and Argyle could come back and maybe settle some of the debts he left behind

Best of luck to Salford, and I hope they prove all the sceptics wrong. Rowley is no mug, and I want him to do a fine job at Salford.

Agreed, best of luck to the club, hope the ground move lightens the financial burden, old fans return and new ones give them a go in the new stadia.....