Im not sure exactly how many clubs are spending up to the cap maybe 6 next season? With that being the case there is no way the cap will be increased.

I like the idea of doing something with home grown talent not counting on the cap. However from what I understand Wigan will have made a profit this year based on winning at Wembley which suggests its break even ish without the CC.

We are all concerned about players (from all clubs) leaving for RU or NRL but even if there was a significant increase do you think clubs could match what is being offered elsewhere? With some players being offered 5 or 6 times their current salary where would the money come from to keep them?

I agree with that. A lot of people are blaming the RFL for not raising the salary cap. But as I've said on other topics I can only see it doing more harm than good. We've been in a situation in the past where we could spend whatever we like and it very nearly landed the club in a lot of financial trouble. In the short term it would be a solution to stoping any young future League players switching to Union. But long term it would only have a detrimental effect imo.

It should increase with inflation or whatever the saying/way is

Maybe but it wouldnt make any difference between what SL are offering in comparison to RU or NRL. Both of these will increase in the coming seasons by serveral times more than inflation.

You are assuming offers have to be matched. In some cases that may be true but in others we might get to keep players by a salary increase that doesn't go the whole hog. If that were affordable but not possible because of rules or lack of initiative from the RFL then that would be bad news. I also think this would put the price up further that RU would have to pay and while rich they do not have a bottomless pit of money like the Man City's of this world.

We would have to go along way to getting close to the counter offers. But my real point was, where would the money come from?

Too many clubs are not getting the crowds needed to increase turnover, this then increases profit and spending power.
If the salary cap gets increased then clubs will spend money they don't have.
Teams like Warrington that have a wealthy owner who wants to spend it on the club will get stronger and the gap will get wider.
It's just the way it is, union has a lot more money, without getting into serious financial trouble we can not compete.

Where would the money come from? Good question.

It could come from two sources: external investment or increased revenue generation.

RL won't attract the super-rich to invest in it or attract a significantly higher level of revenue unless there is a step-change in its management and administration.

We need a better international game.

We need clubs to be incentivised to raise income through a reformed salary cap - one which actually prevents clubs from going bust by forcing them to comply with business plans that have been approved in advance by independent auditors. If people want a level playing field (though we don't have that now, small clubs are still not getting through to grand finals - well, unless you count Saints

) then the cap could be raised slowly.

Long term though something must be done. Forget RU as a threat to RL: if the cap isn't raised in line with inflation then before long the game will become semi-pro anyway. The fact is that the cap is now worth over 30% less in real terms than it was when the cap was brought in. If this continues over the longer term then many more players will need to get jobs or will simply drop out of the game.

What a damning indictment it is of the people running the game that clubs can now afford to pay a third less than they could when the cap came in. Anyone that thinks the SL era has been a success is wrong - that cold, hard mathematical and economic fact is condemnation of over a decade of mismanagement and a devastating lack of ambition.

What I don't understand is why many RL fans can't grasp the point that you could raise the cap without allowing a spending free for all. It's not an either/or. You can raise the SC limit but only allow clubs to spend what they could afford, but subject to the cap limit.

If you raised the cap to say £2m but required clubs to submit business plans to the RFL and independent auditors for approval, and then monitored clubs against those business plans then clubs would not be able to spend unsustainably.

Laughably clubs are free to spend unsustainably at present - smaller clubs can go bust due to overspending on players because the % cap has gone (whose bright idea was that?) and there's nothing to stop clubs going bust due to general mismanagement of their finances or say overspending on stadium works

Just think about how many clubs have gone bust in the SC era. The SC is not working.

Crowds should come with better players, better results which means more money has to be spent but you cant spend it as there aint the crowds/sucess...we are stuck in a vicious circleuntil there are 14 willing owners to stump up their own money take a risk and get things moving. Tomany RL people stuck in their ways.

Deano

I agree with what your saying, but most clubs are struggling financially at the moment.
It's ok to increase cap but you need the increase in turnover to pay for it, only a labour government would increase without worrying about the long term effects.
I think losing a few players to union is better than losing clubs.

If the figures Warrington were reported to be paying Matt King are to be believed, we could have afforded to outbid Saracens for Joel Tomkins and had money left to sign Sam as well.

The constraint for us is the salary cap but with Australian players now being more expensive because of the exchange rate it is more cost effective for us to sign young British players like Myler, Atkins and Ratchford. I have no doubt that if it wasn't for the salary cap Warrington would have been in for Kyle Eastmond and James Graham and probably now the Tomkins brothers as well. If Simon Moran wants to invest money into RL and bring the best young talent to Warrington then try to restrain him with the salary cap? It's better for the game that these guys are kept in league.

Sally I think that he has done great job for Warrington, bringing in some top players. But Warrington are on a par with other clubs at the moment.
Do you want a game where one clubs (like us in 80 / 90's) is winning everything year after year?
The game then really starts to lose it's appeal to fans of the other clubs.

I wouldn't mind it if we were winning everything year after year, I like it when there is 'power' in the game, everybody knows who the benchmark is. I enjoyed RL in the 1980s and 1990s even though Wigan were winning everything, I always admired that side with Hanley, Bell and Edwards in it, and Warrington had a fairly good record against them in the late 80s so that made those games eagerly anticipated. I could certainly live with 8 Challenge Cups in a row and the Saints and Wigan being in our shadow!

Which would be great for you until Simon Moran went bankrupt or decided he'd had enough then your club would implode financially. Sugar Daddy's arnt really the answer , improved revenue and development of the international game are !

Sally, That is really not going to help our sport, but one set of fans will be happy.

We need to have a sport where there are 4 or 5 teams that can win trophies.
This will increase crowds and also tv figs, thus bringing in more money allowing the cap to be increased.

if Moran walked away from wire then you would be in big trouble.

If you look at Aus teams go from wooden spoon to potential champions in a season... we have 4 or 5 teams now

Saints
Wigan
Warrington
Leeds
Shudds

I'd throw Catalans into that mix too.

They're a team I wouldn't want to face in the cup next year.

Good point and Hull could be a real threat too.

Someone has just started a thread on the Saints board that union are sniffing round Lomax, could be true and wouldnt surprise me as they will be on the prowl for any League talent, if it's true and he did want to follow the £££ I doubt we would be able to stop him with or without the cap.

Why do we need 14?

Why should our sport at the top level be limited by those no-marks, with neither ambition nor foresight at the bottom?

For too long we have allowed the Wakefields and Castlefords of this world dictate what the best teams are allowed to do....

"If the cap is raised, we won't be able to afford it, therefore we're not going to allow you to do it".

Then as soon as Cas are relegated, they start bleating that they should be allowed to spend MORE than the Championship cap, simply because they CAN afford to and "why should we be held back"?

Well guess what - The best of us are being held back by YOU shower of sh|te, and our chairmen are allowing it to happen.

We need a change in the system to reflect what a club can TRULY spend.

If we had something like the UEFA Fair-Play rules, whereby a club had to show either a minimum profit or at least a break-even over say 3 years, that would no longer penalise those of us that have actually marketed our clubs.

It would also penalise clubs with no ambition, no clue and no money.

Tough luck. Work harder.

What is the point in us consistantly improving our attendance figures (other than to show that we can) if we can't spend the increased revenue that it generates?

Please, for the sake of our sport - Stop the tail from wagging the f***ing dog !!!!!

Remove the right of the little clubs to prevent the top ones from moving forward (safely).

If something makes sense and could save/improve our sport - Get it implemented.

Why would Moran walk away from the Wire?

That's like saying i would walk away from the Wire, he's a life long Wire fan, he stands with other fans in the south stand, he'll leave Wire in a box.

Completely missed the point!! This is not a our owner is better than your owner debate. Its about how as a sport we can look at changing our game. If we are not careful Morans presence at Wire will become irrelevant as we will all be watching mediocre players as we can keep the best ones in RL.

Cap needs to be changed maybe in amount but more so to allow clubs to benefit from prodcing their own.

Great post don't mince your words just say it like it is

The thing with owners in RL is it is different from being an owner in football....you don't need to have £200 million to make an impact, £10 million will turn a rugby club around, so its open to far more potential investors, there will be wealthy British businessmen that like sport that could come in and do it we don't need to just go begging Russian oligarchs and Saudi oil sheikhs.

thats a good point actually. there must be plenty of millionaire businessmen out there who have an ambition to own a top level sports club, but cant get into football anymore.

how do we attract them to RL though?