Really hope that this comes off! Super League is badly missing 'star' players at the minute.

i like the idea and hope it goes through.

im sure there will be arguments made around team moral suffering, knowing there is someone earning more than everyone else... but that's down to the club to manage.

if it does go through, and say we go and sign Billy Slater.... would that mean that as a club, we should be thanking Koukash?

I still don't think it'll attract the best players - just the money hungry ones. The best ones in the NRL won't come over here as they won't be able to play for Aus or Origin. Also if the think about it you're not going to spend the 'marquee' money on anything other than positions 1,6,7,9 or a really special forward. All it'll help with it to keep players from disappearing over to the NRL.

You'd need to have a cap on what can be spent on the marquee player to stop clubs overspending too.

The RFL need to think very carefully about how they work this, because if they are willing to let clubs spend on a player over the cap why not just increase the cap? Give clubs the opportunity to either have a marquee player or increased cap?

Ridiculous rule. The cap is there because clubs don't have the money to fund large salaries without putting their futures at risk. If they let a club sign one player for significantly more money, that just increases the losses they make.

Plus, if you sign a player on a much larger deal, how do you justify that to the other players?

What makes you think that any class import will come from QLD or NSW?

How top many players - other than Kiwi's that you'd want that were born outside of NSW/Qld - and how many top class Kiwi's would swap the NRL for SL?

i don't really care about the ifs and buts.. if it allows Tony Smith to bring in another quality player then im all for it.

James Graham, Burgess (s), Sam Tomkins.. i dont know enough about antipodean rugby league to comment on the others playing over there.

maybe this would also allow us to bring back some of rugby leagues union deserters as well... Tomkins, Folau etc.... maybe even bring in someone from union like George North.....Theres plenty of great players about.

I quite like the idea but hope some clubs dont try and punch above their weight and suffer financially!

So we might get more of the likes of King, the Monaghans, Hicks, Hodgson then.

Isn't a marquee a big tent ?

well it certainly wont be a big trent.

It's edging closer to Central Contracts.

whilst acknowledging Sally's earlier post if we couldn't get Greg Inglis or players of that quality its not really a marquee rule is it?
With the best will in the world Chris Hicks was not a marquee player and would raise eyebrows everywhere if he was offered over 250 grand a year.

Joel would not be here if he hadn't got into bother and Michael.... could you imagine the stick he would have copped being our Marquee scrum half...!

largely we will be able to pick up very good kiwis, and end of their career Aussies. Salford may get sonny bill but could we get Cameron Smith ....? I doubt it.

I dont like.
I would give support to all youth development not being included in any cap.

You justify that by the player being good....when Saints were part time and signed Mal Meninga were the other players saying thats not fair why not make Meninga go semi pro and work 60 hours a week down pit like us, whats so special about him?

Which will inevitably happen - Salford sign a big name, Wire go a bit bigger, Wigan further still, then a Bradford or Hull KR try to compete and end up in serious trouble.

For evidence of what will happen, see Widnes in the late 80's/early 90's, and eventually Wigan after that.

Personally, I'd prefer to see a draft system brought in.

A draft from what?

From a batch of high quality players, similar to the IPL cricket system - Each player has a reserve price, each club gets to bid - In reality, far too complex for the bellends who run Super League to run properly.

It's ok bringing these top players in if they are going to deliver the same performances over here as their reputations suggest & not just come over as holiday makers.

Spending the money bringing our own players through sounds a much better & more sustainable prospect.

I agree with the bellend observation but I can't see your IPL argument.

Consider the American system, there are a huge number of college amateurs ready to term pro.... hence the draft system. We don't have that available. There is no great pool of players waiting to be picked up. The only potential pool of players are those being developed by the clubs themselves who are unlikely to just give up their best players.

For the IPL scenario you might require all players to be on one year contracts and every body became a free agent in the close season and the bidding begins. If there is no restriction the rich clubs would buy all the best players. If there is a spending limit then that is effectively pretty much what we have now in the salary cap.

Any player is up for bidding at the end of his contract

If you look at the current situation in SL with approx 5/6 sides unable to finance competitive sides, then I think you probably get a good idea of what would happen if the salary cap was lifted next year -the wealthy 5 clubs would probably pull away from the remaining 7 and we would be talking about reducing SL to 5 clubs. And a marquee signing for me is simply a 'partial lifting' of the cap. So I don't really understand the logic of the RFL promoting marquee players but retaining the salary cap.

As we move into the new Sky contract, clubs will be getting paid around £1.8M per year, roughly equal to the salary cap. That seems to offer a better chance of a more competitive SL, and should certainly reduce the embarrassing regularity of a SL club getting into difficulties. It would be nice to get 'professional' back into SL again, and then start to think about raising or lifting the cap.

Good points Offload but by enabling more clubs to have more money doesn't necessarily ensure that they will be run any better and they could still fall into financial difficulties.

A more level playing field it might appear to be but I think a better solution could be to allow perhaps permit some of the clubs home grown talent not to count. Also is say around £1.8M per club going to stop the 'mass exodus' to the NRL. If you can show you can afford it why shouldn't £1.8M become the start point up to 50% of your income as a cap with better supervision of clubs accounts although you run into Dita's bellend argument

Well, I would certainly support some form of discount for home grown players, we do need to provide an incentive for all clubs to produce more rugby league talent.