They're not - Unless they play as well.

(At least last time I checked. Don't think the rules have changed since)

[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugby-league/news/article/480/8541941/koukash-wants-salary-cap-increase[/url

The 'spokesman' must be new at Red Hall

It didn't take him long to poke the hornet's nest at Red Hall

Thought the good Dr was a bit restrained, after all there's no salary cap in horse racing. Once he got stuck in I expected him to call for the SC's abolition.

Ok then
the Dr is obviously an intelligent and wealthy man
but he is showing a real naivety with his comments about the cap

surely he more than anyone must understand one of the reasons why it is in place. at the end of the day it was only 5 weeks ago the Salford nearly didnt exist because they had no money, owed (and still do) various debtors and could barely muster a playing squad to fulfil its fixtures

now 5 weeks later he is talking about raising a cap from 1.7 to 3.5m so we can compete with the aussies

I have posted elsewhere that it is good for Salford and good for the game if we can get wealthy owners in like Dr Koukash, but at the same time lets take things one step at a time, he needs to try and get his own house in order (which i believe he will), before trying to change everything else

The point is that the SC failed to stop Salford becoming insolvent. It is ineffective as a financial control measure.

I like some of his comments in that article. Blunt but honest views about the weaknesses and failings of the Cap won't do any harm.

Okay, talk is cheap, but he's not become a multi-millionaire just by talking.

If he can inject some of that belligerence into Salford and bring them up to high SL standard, it will help the British game immensely. It will also be good to have another adversarial chairman in charge of a powerful club who is prepared to bang on the table at Red Hall.

Though I favour some kind of cap, the current one is flawed. We need to change in order to survive in this new RL climate.

You can't help but think that the Doctor should consider becoming competitive with London Broncos a more pressing matter than worrying about Melbourne Storm?

Koukash is stating the obvious about the disparity between the salary caps of the SL and the NRL and while he is the first high profile figure in the game to state it so publicly (certainly recently) it surely isn't news to anyone at Red Hall or anywhere else.

It's no use raising the cap unless the money is there to spend. He clearly has the money and is clearly willing to spend it but the rest of the league simply doesn't have it.

In RU the deal with BT Vision to take the sport away from Sky is what is funding their ambition to pay players more money. They want to pay the level of soccers fist division clubs to attract the talent but the key point is they are getting the money into the sport in general and dividing it up. Not relying on sugar daddies to provide the cash.

If Koukash wants the cap raised he needs to suggest ways to increase revenue for the sport as a whole. A few more bums on seats because clubs sign a few high profile players simply will not fund the kind of money required.

So IMO his contribution to the debate is very limited because while I am all for paying players more (I think its essential for the sport to do so) it needs to be properly funded.

When you say the rest of the league doesn't have it, do you mean [isome[/i of the league doesn't have it?

You're not telling me that if the salary cap was raised, the likes of Moran, Lenegan, Pearson and a few others wouldn't spend more to entice top players to SL. And for those that can't afford it, tough , that's sport. They need to work harder to increase their own revenues.

As much as Moran and Lenegan would probably break the existing cap for a star Aussie or two neither are going to break the bank to do so.

I'd hazard a guess that not one club in SL is within £100k of the existing salary cap and that many spend around half. Wigan have the salary of the best second rower in SL going spare right now along with Lima/Finch/Leuluai/Carmont who were certainly big earners.

If Koukash spent £1.8 m on salaries he would be in the top four and, given time to shift some deadwood, would be competing at the very top.

They wouldn't even need to be the most astute signings, the current squad must be on peanuts and he's probably got the best part of a million quid right now to spend on 5 or 6 players.

All that raising the sal cap would do is force the hand of Wigan/Leeds/Warrington to lure the same players with their greater histories/training facilities/locations... Take our club as the example, last year we bought two star youngsters out of their contracts, probably spent a few hundred grand improving orrell and didn't post a massive loss. Looking purely at match tickets, at a conservative £18 each Wigan's SL home games would generate £3.5m revenue vs Salford's £1.2m. Does he really want to be in a position where the big clubs can use that advantage?

The more Koukash talks like this the more I think he's simply not going to build a competiive Super League side at Salford. Rather than bid £500k on Sam Tomkins why not bid a fitfth of that on Brent Webb?
YOU MAY ACTUALLY GET HIM!

You make sence to a degree but you say the big teams will lure players with better histories/ facilities/ locations? The first one yes but facilities and locations? If you look what the Doctor is planning to do at Salford then you wouldn't come out with them 2 comments.
Firstly Salford plan on building an onsite training ground complete with high intensity gym pool and rehabilitation centre along with a hostel to house over seas youth or youth players who lives to far away. So when this is complete there won't be many teams to compete with our facilities.
Secondly you say location? You do realise Salford is next to the city of manchester one of the most modern advanced city's in England.
Thirdly you say history, yes you've got that one in abundance, but what Ed Farish our CEO is trying to do when selling the club to potential new signings is make them realise if they win trophies they'd be apart of the history books if you win trophies at Wigan it's just yet another name in a book and another medal in the cabinets. Take Manchester United for example they've had players like greening eagles and Chadwick all have won more league titles compared to say Sergio Augero at Manchester City but who will go down in the history book of either club those 3 United players or Augero at city. We all know the answer to that one. So despite being big clubs to compete with there's always selling points for Salford to use when enticing players.

If no clubs were within £100k of the cap it could be abolished tomorrow with zero impact. Wigan may not quite spend up to cap, due to various player movements in the off season but they won't be far off. Why would they (allegedly) have had to get special dispensation to increase Tomkins earnings last year if there was still money left within the club's salary cap?

Probably because last year we had the likes of Lima/Finch/Leuluai/Carmont/Hock earning big-bucks on the books

Comparing Aguero to Luke Chadwick is a bit ridiculous, like for like it would be Adam Johnson or Scott Sinclair. In fact the only comparable Man Utd player I can remember (winning something with the last kick of the season) was Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, the bloke with a 40ft banner at the Stretford end 10 years after retiring.

Secondly, do you not admit that we have better facilities now? I plan to build an oak lodge and move Cheryl Cole in but as of now I can only offer a 3 bed house in Wigan and attract women accordingly.

As above, you have an awful team with awful facilities in an awful Rugby league location. The first step to your world domination is not Billy Slater in rented accomodation. If you want to attract a world class player in the next five years the start has to be becoming something more than the laughing stock of the league. So sign some decent players.

Yeah exactly, we were spending up to the cap.

Yes I am saying exactly that. If you think Lenegan is interested in bankrolling higher players salaries out of his own pocket I think you are very much mistaken.

Think about it. If the cap were doubled to compete with the NRL that would involve Wigan finding an extra £1.6m in revenue and I for one do no believe IL will put that kind of money into the club year after year. I don't think Moran or Pearson would do the same for their clubs either.

The sports that pay the highest wages basically fund it from TV deals. That is how RU is doing it. RL needs to generate a lot more money off its own bat as a sport before the salary cap could be increased to the level of the NRL.

The sugar daddy route might allow a small increase in the cap but that won't make any real difference because we are talking of doubling it to compete with our immediate rivals for talent.

Maybe I didn't word that post very well. I didn't mean [idoubling[/i the cap and Wigan needing to find an extra £1.6m. That's cleary not going to happen.

If, however, it was raised at the end of the year - say by £200k - I don't think Lenegan would continue to blindly abide to the £1.6m level, it's a totally arbitrary figure - albeit, agreed by a majority of the member clubs.

So whilst he may not want to bankroll higher players' salaries out of his own pocket, he may want to consider modest cap increases - if he wants to protect his assets!

The fact is that will just allow clubs to spend massive amounts of money on juniors. So when/if they make it the club benefits massively.

Already Wigan and Wire and throwing money at youth players and that would just make it worse.

If the Dr wants to spend silly money within the confines of a salary cap, invest in the best youth system money can buy, buy the stadium, market the club to anyone that will listen, have offers and invite the corporates around on freebies with the purpose of getting them to invest.

Fill the stadium and surround the club with the best staff money can buy, if people see that Salford are an extremely professional club, and run to the highest standard, players will be drawn to it.

Moran seems to have done this, he's invested heavily in areas that he can and in turn it's made us a profitable well run club that people look up to behind the scenes.

The interesting and perhaps disheartening thing about the raising of the cap in Australia has been the immediate demand for unrealistic salary increases by players looking to sign new deals.

We can only assume that something similar would happen here.

A club announces that it has an extra few hundred thousand, and players start to ask for inflated wages. And who could blame them? It's human nature.

For me, once the cash is in place - and I agree with Dave O that it needs to be found and provided across the SL board, rather than through the generosity of wealthy individuals - the cap needs to be moderated sensibly rather than simply done away with or raised willy nilly. If you got exemptions from the cap for home-grown starlets, and if you could call on a central fund of extras for marquee players etc - i.e. if the only cases where the salary cap didn't apply were specifically laid down in law - that should stop ragtag and bobtail suddenly doubling their asking price. That should also improve your chances of keeping your home-grown talent, and attract the occasional big name signing to to put a few extra booties on seats.

Rather than have exemption of youth coming through, have it on proximity to said club, it stops the rich clubs going across the country hoovering up the best talent.

A bit like when you waved the pound notes under Micky Learmonths nose then?

If the next 'Tomkins' was found in Hull, you're telling me that Wigan, Saint, Wire even Leeds and Hudds wouldn't try to recruit him for their team?

No we'd certainly all be after the same player without a doubt,but the Rhinos wouldn't win the race if it was purely based on the money offered.
Although the Rhinos have learnt how to win major trophies and on a regular basis too without having to do this