Sorry few crossed wires I think, (Im gonna blame the time

)

In the situation you mention there then obviously Wigan tell the RU/NRL/whatever club to get stuffed. But in this particular example of Joel moving to Saracens it appears though the clubs are attempting to negotiate a transfer fee which both parties will be "happy" with.

I would imagine if a player was told by an agent I can triple your current wages, then the union club offered a stupidly low amount, then the player may be a little pee'd off but would probably understand why the RL turned it down.

I would also imagine a RU club wouldnt come in for one of our stars without knowing that they were going to have to pay a decent fee, especially for contracted international players in their mid 20s. I still stand by my point that if a union club is interested and the player wants to go then the RL club dont gain anything by digging their heels in and will eventually end up letting the player go.

The bits in italics form your post are contradictory because they inevitably mean unacceptable fees could be offered because a club will just let them go anyway eventually. RU people are not thick and if it became apparent we were always going to release players the fees offered would be less and less. We then have no negotiation point other than the goodwill of the Union club to give us a nice wadge of cash.

Or put the other way any club willing to say no to an unacceptable fee must be preprepared to deal with the player afterwards but you say there is no point to hanging onto the player.

So at the end of the day we either cave in no matter what the fee offered because we don't want to deal with an unhappy player or we set appropriate fees to reflect the players value and stick too it. If doing the latter means we end up with an unhappy player then we have to deal with it. To pinch Crunchers phrase a line in the sand needs to be drawn and the club and the game will have to deal with the consequences of doing so. If that means he goes for free in four years time I see no problem with that because we will have had our value as I doubt any player in that circumstance would be daft enough to be unprofessional as it would hurt them as much as the club.

Hmmm. A lot of unrealistic thinking going on here, I'm afraid.

In the event that Joel simply walked out on Wigan and joined Sarries Wigan would only be entitled to damages to compensate them for their loss. Their loss would be net of the wages they would otherwise have paid. The losses would therefore include the costs of finding a replacement player, loss of any sponsorship revenues that were particularly attached to Joel, but would not include the "value" the club place on Joel.

If Joel were the subject of a transfer bid from Leeds Rhinos and the club wanted to sell him to Leeds and Joel had already agreed personal terms with Leeds before changing his mind then you might have a case that Wigan were being deprived of the transfer fee, but other than that it's hard to see how the "value" argument works in terms of reflecting real losses.

In terms of the "investment" Wigan have put into training Joel it's hard to see how the costs of training required by an employee to carry out his employment can be recovered from him if he leaves. It may seem unfair that Wigan have become an RU feeder club and that our players can be enticed away, but that's just business I'm afraid. Employees can leave to join other employers after receiving on the job training and experience. The danger of RL clubs becoming feeder clubs for top talent into RU has been obvious for years and RL clubs (and most fans to be fair, including on this board) have just ignored the issue.

Ultimately the losses would not be huge because RL players of Joel's calibre aren't paid much relatively speaking and wouldn't cost much to replace (due to the SC's effect on dampening down pay). Figures of £500k or more have been bandied about (£3m?) but just aren't realistic - I wish they were, but they aren't.

In the event that Tomkins simply walked out on Wigan and started playing for Sarries and Wigan took this to court and won the case (as I'm sure they would) both Tomkins and Sarries would be liable for damages for breach of contract in Tomkins' case and inducement to breach contract in Sarries' case. However it would be unlikely to get that far - Sarries would put in an offer to settle, which would then put Wigan in a difficiult position on costs if they held out for an unrealistic "valuation" that did not reflect the damages the court would award (see my post on this earlier in this thread).

I'm sure Sarries won't want the negative publicity or the damaging effect on Joel that a major dispute would cause, which will lead them to pay a premium over what they would have to in a court case but legally Wigan are in a weak position due to the low damages that would be available and that is also part of the picture on these negotiations (as is the point that Joel has obviously had his head turned by this RU overture and is not going to want to stay at Wigan now). If IL gets £250k he will have done really well.

DeanO, are you suggesting that players of Tomkins' 'calibre' are ten a penny? I would have thought that if you look around SL, the number of quality British centres is very low indeed. There are a number with potential, but as of today the best SL can come up with is Yeaman and Shenton (if fit). Joel would have been in the squad (and possibly team) if he hadn't pulled out. It's hardly a buyers' market.

I also agree with those saying that its about time RL clubs started sticking up for themselves with respect to these deals. I'm of the view that whilst Saracens would undoubtedly be able to force a transfer in breach of Tomkins' contract if they went to court (and Wigan may get less than hoped in compensation), they too wouldn't like the implications.

Imagine a (highly improbable) scenario where a crazed Russian tycoon decided to invest in Quins (I said improbable!). I suspect the RFL would quickly decide that things such as transfer fees were irrelevant, and that RU internationals could be exmpted from the Cap so long as the club involved had the money. In such a world, Saracens would be absolutely unable to prevent said Russian loon from looting their entire squad for peanuts, as they themselves had set the precedent that contracts betwen sporting clubs and professional players are basically worthless if the player wants out.

OTOH I wouldn't underestimate a court's willingness to treat reasonably highly-paid sports stars somewhat differently to your average punter. Chris Caisley (a lawyer of all things) seriously misread the ability to enforce employment contracts with respect to I Harris. I'm not saying the issue is the same but Caisley obviously thought the court would see the 'deal' between Harris and Leeds as restraint of trade and ignore it. They didn't and it cost a lot more than Leeds would have settled for before the case went to court (not to mention costs).

Finally, I'd also add that its also about sending messages to players as well. Wigan gave Joel a very long contract. Regardless of the level of pay, they offered him years of job security. In return Wigan wouldn't need to look for a player in his position for the duration of the contract. I also assume that if he really kicked on Wigan would - as every other club - have been open to renegotiating. Players need to understand that long-term deals aren't offered lightly - clubs are taking a big risk themselves. What if Joel's form goes down the toilet during the contract? I'm sure he wouldn't be arguing that 'its just a job and it'd be OK if Wigan fired me'.

Apologies for the rant but I've seen Leeds lose a couple of players to the dark side, and I don't buy the argument that players leaving RL is OK. Its not, it hurts the sport I follow a lot.

You both miss my point. I am not saying we should put a low fee on Joel nor should we roll over and die. We should hold out for what we believe is a realistic figure and stick to it. Making the fee too high with the sole idea being to make Saracens walk away would be foolish IMO on one condition....If Joel wants to go. If he doesnt than its a pointless thread if he does we need to do whats best for the club. Demanding a world record fee just to keep a player who wishes to be elsewhere will cause problems. We would be using valuable cap space for a player who would rather be somewhere else . I am all for doing all we can to stop the top players switching. However, Wigan can not do it alone the RFL needs to grow a pair. Ashton, Eastmond etc were released or out of contract. As soon as RL players can be 'bought' then long term contracts will mean nothing. This will lead to shorter contracts so players can walk away at the end of them. We will then see an increase in talent crossing over year on year. Wigan should lead the way but we cant do it on our own.

Rugby League is making the wrong impression to union by even considering sell either joel or sam they will think they can take anyone after this. If some one wants to buy a union player that is under contract they if they dont want to sell they will not sell simple as that and certainly not when they have just signed 5 year deals they would have the player come and commit there future to there club till they contract ends i.e Manu Tuilagi super 15 was looking at him he was interested but theres no way he was getting out his contract. End of the day joel signed the 5 year deal he was happy and said his future sorted and it was a easy decison for him sam was the same and now we are expected to role over because they have been brain washed with sh#te. If correct what few people on here think that if a player gets offered a extra £50,000 or so they should run to off to union then we will never have any stars in the game and it will die. Bottom line is RL is a game were we need a bit of loyalty from everyone and its not like joel, sam and any other top RL dont have a pot p#ss in is it. People like sam and joel are becoming like proper little yes men union clicks fingers and they going running. I do think all that said that if joel is only on 80k then he should be on at least £100k to £120k and dont no what sam is on but i think he should get £200k plus and to do that with the salary cap as it is must be a possibility when you look at the players that left left like hoffman etc and if i was the RFL i would then give sam a loyalty payment.

Won't that actually be 1 year into a 3 three deal with an additional 2 year option for the player, the same as his brother's deal?

I agree absolutely that the RFL needs to grow a pair and start fighting to keep its prize assets. It can't just be down to the clubs, because ultimately they haven't got the resources.

But the bit I've underlined honestly does not matter. This is now a much bigger issue than whether we've got a player sulking in the dressing room. I've said before and I'll say it again, I'm not in favour of freezing players out of the game, but IMO we've reached a key moment in this tug-of-war over playing talent. Yes, it won't help Wigan to have a player on their books who's not being cooperative etc - but it helps them even less to put out a signal that they will release their best players on the cheap. It's clearly the case that RU will now chase any RL back who attracts rave notices (or, dare I say it, scores one good try on network television). If this is allowed to continue, we will NEVER develop any more players of this calibre and be able to keep hold of them.

We should not be thinking about negotiating a deal that suits us, Saracens, Joel and Andy Clarke. We should be thinking about negotiating a deal that suits us solely. That's the bottom line, and if it turns into a legal battle - then fair enough. If they are going to keep on swooping for our prize talent, they need to know that it's going to hurt.

The other thing is - if you make it complicated for a player to leave, that might concentrate the thinking of both the player (in Joel's case I keep hearing rumours that he's unsure about leaving) and the RU financiers, who, as they're only buying 'potential', might be tempted to start looking closer to home. If might also help if it puts a few questiionmarks against the wisdom of agents like Andy Clarke and Frank Endacott, who appear to be doing very nicely out of unsettling RL players.

Cruncher, I'm afraid that losing our best young players is now the future for RL, unless there is radical change.

I've been talking about this on this board for years (as have others, I can't claim any special insight) but unless RL overhauls its management and structures it is going to decline into a semi-professional, third rate sport.

I have never said that RL clubs should pay any player more than they can afford (in fact I've argued for tighter financial monitoring - the SC and licensing system have been dismal failures), but the game should plan for and reward growth, rather than encouraging a lack of ambition.

We have a situation now in RL where clubs apparently can afford only to pay players over 30% less in real terms than they did at the outset of SL (this is shown by the fact the RL has not raised the salary cap in line with inflation). If this carries on in the long term we will not have to worry about RU raids because the game will not exist in the form it does, most players will have gone back to semi-pro status and the game will be similar in status to the French domestic RL championship.

If we had put in place proper structures and management we would have clubs that could afford to pay a bit more now to players like Joel, enough to make it a big risk for him to move to a different sport. 80k a year for a player of Joel's calibre. That's the level RL has sunk to in this country and it's only going to get worse.

The shortsightedness of RL club owners, inept RFL management and the parochial and at times idiotic nature of many RL fans (over the years there have been a huge number of stupid posts on this board by the pro-SC and pro-status quo, Wigan hating flat-earth muppets, in fact some people seem to be motivated by envy and think RL players earn too much...

) have left our sport in a weak condition and with a very uncertain future. Thanks a lot.

I also don't buy the argument that players leaving RL is OK!

As for Joel's worth, it's going to be difficult for Wigan's barrister to stand up before a high court judge to argue that a player who is only paid £80k p.a. is "worth" say £500k in terms of lost income to the club and costs of replacement!

Joel is a special talent, but in RL special talent doesn't equate to expensive staff cost (because of the SC).

I'm afraid that while the SC works to help short-sighted club owners clamp down on the pay of playing staff, it doesn't help them as employers claiming damages from their (relatively) poorly paid playing employees. They can't have their cake and eat it - if players like Joel don't cost much they can't argue they are "worth" a great deal. If club owners did try to run that argument then that could be very dangerous for them; the club owners might find the SC coming under rather closer legal scrutiny that they would wish. It's far from clear that the SC in its current form would be upheld by a court as a lawful restraint of trade. (The NZ courts allowed the NZRU cap in a restraint of trade case, but subjected it to strict conditions; I imagine a British court would approach it in a similar way and would be unimpressed by the fact that the SC has not risen in line with inflation and that only a small number of big clubs have won the SL, which makes the SC look like a device to reduce player pay rather than something for the good of the game.)

I certainly don't disagree with any of that.

I despair, Cruncher, I really do. I can see a future for the sport where we aren't even losing our best young players in 20 years' time to RU because they aren't even getting involved in the sport in the first place.

We may well end up with a third rate sport whose semi-pro players aren't good enough to make RU clubs want them. What a dismal future that would be. That is where we are heading.

Joel Tomkins contract at Wigan for next year is not £80k. The structure of the long term contracts awarded by Wigan sees such players as the Tomkins, Mossop and Goulding receive massive pay increments going forward. Hence the loss of Hoffman, Deacon, Coley, etc being replaced by Dudson, Flower and Luakai.

What do call massive?

Good question. I was also puzzled by the implication Deacon would be on a big package... and that we aren't going to be making any more expensive signings...

Looks like a wire troll on the wind up to me.

50% would be considered a "massive" increment in my opinion. Do you agree?

It's not a new suggestion that Wigan are tight on the cap because of contractual increments awarded to players on long term deals.

This is a point I have made several times.



A very good point. I think the idea that if the Joel thing ended up in court this would mean Wigan would end up with less money than say accepting a fee of only £250K is wide of the mark.



It is my understanding that all the players on long term deals at Wigan have increments on their contracts already agreed. I heard this ages ago when people first started speculating about recruitment for 2012. That isn't to say they could not be awarded more money if the club had the room under the cap and wanted to do so.

Can you just explain how a deal between Harris and Leeds relating to what would happen if he returned to SL and him signing for Bradford instead of Leeds is relevant to the situation here, which involves a player leaving SL. An obvious point is that if the Bulls wanted him they would have to pay Leeds a transfer fee under RL rules. Clearly that doesn't apply here.

Does anyone even know what was paid out to Leeds?

Harris was reputed to be on a big salary I seem to recall (200k?) so you'd expect the compensation to be bigger than in relation to Joel, even without the transfer fee angle.

I think its relevant on the basis that you shouldn't underestimate a court's willingness to treat reasonably highly-paid sports stars somewhat differently to your average punter. Chris Caisley (a lawyer of all things) seriously misread the ability to enforce employment contracts with respect to I Harris. I'm not saying the issue is the same but Caisley obviously thought the court would see the 'deal' between Harris and Leeds as restraint of trade and ignore it. They didn't and it cost a lot more than Leeds would have settled for before the case went to court (not to mention costs).

It's not relevant at all. There is clearly no restraint of trade involved in a player agreeing to give first refusal to a club in the event he wants to return to SL in return for that club agreeing to release him to join an RU club. If that's what Caisley thought then it's no wonder the court didn't agree!



I'm not sure what you mean by a court's willingness to treat sports stars differently. The rules on damages aren't differently applied for sports stars than for other people.

In the event that there is a breach of contract and the innocent party doesn't suffer any loss they only get nominal damages (say £1 or £10).

If they suffer loss that is caused by the breach then they get compensated for that loss.

Clauses in contracts that try to allow a party to recover more than their real losses in the event of breach are usually struck down by the courts as being void penalty clauses. They have to be a reasonable pre-estimate of loss. The courts are not keen on people over-recovering on their losses, and the fact that the party in breach is say a premiership footballer doesn't mean the courts will turn a blind eye to a penalty clause.

I understand the desire for Wigan to get more compensation (it would be great if we could) but I've been saying all along that the club is in a weak position and the press reports seem now to bear out that IL is aware of this.

All very interesting but it does rather suggest that you didn't actually read what DaveO was actually responding to before having a go at his comment. My response was copy and pasted from BrisbaneRhino's post DaveO quoted.

I would say it's almost a certainty that is the case. Saints fans used to get frustrated when we didnt replace 1st team players like for like each year but if your bringing kids through and they are successful like for like replacements is near impossible

Eh? I was responding to the comment you posted, not Dave's. You may have copied and pasted PART of the text of your post from a BrisbaneRhino post that Dave also quoted (though without amendment) but it was still your post that I was responding to (and you seem to have added the assertion that the Harris case was "relevant"icon_wink.gif.

Having said that, it doesn't matter who said that it is relevant, because it isn't.