Just not the Saint's fans?

Apparently the club's own fault. The discrepancy was discovered late 2018. Wigan originally disputed it. An independent tribunal was arranged. Wigan then admitted all but one payment should have been in the cap before the tribunal could meet.

Maybe if they had come clean initially they might have escaped the points deduction

What's a salary cap?

Regards

Wire fan.

They'll only show up if they win on Thursday night.

you must be on the accounts department then .. one word .. errr

Seems like a very minor breach to me. A very small amount and not exactly done to deliberately circumvent the cap.
Not sure on Wigan’s argument that the penalty should be less just because they didn’t prosper from the breach. If you’re over the salary cap, you’re over the salary cap and the performance of the team doesn’t really matter.
I’m thinking that if this was a first time offence there wouldn’t have been a points deduction. But this is now the third time Wigan have gone over the cap.

notttinhamtiger is right a first time breach of this amount would have no doubt had a different outcome. You would believe after two serious breaches of the cap they would have system in place that kept up to date records down to the penny. It's no good the club hierarchy bellyaching about the outcome the poor accounting is down to them not the RFL.

We re-signed Burgess for 2017, that would make sense given that the breaches related to flights and an agents fee

No world cup match & 2 point deduction for slugging off a failing organisation.

The two point deduction is for cheating. Breaking the salary cap is cheating. Spending more money than you're allowed to and more than anybody else does is the very definition of a material advantage. I have no idea how anyone can feel badly done to here.

Back under your stone, there’s a good lad.

This is payback for IL leading the Superleague breakaway and is everything that's rotten at the core of the RFL. No other professional organisation would run it's own sport down like this. For what amounts to an administrative error they've effectively devalued the competition. Who suffers as usual? The fans. Not just of the Wigan club either. Can you imagine if a team won the competition by 1 or 2 points over Wigan? Their 'victory' would be forever tarnished. The RFL needs consigning to the dustbin of history. They're backward thinking and there's no place for that in today's competitive marketplace.

The Hearns were right. Our sport is killing itself.

No one is complaining about the judgement and by all means fine the club, but if you don't think a points deduction is both disproportionate and damaging to the game in general and the upcoming season in particular then you're part of the problem with our sport.

Hahaha!

So whilst our failing establishment cant prevent our best home grown players leaving for the NRL for more money we have to seek out replacements that cost us agent fees and all of the rest, catch 22 brilliant.

The only suitable punishment for breaching a fixed salary cap is a points deduction, otherwise why would anybody stick to it? The only people to blame for the damage this has done to the sport are the Wigan administration who broke the rules. Do you think they should let Wigan cheat (and however you want to wrap it up it is cheating) because it's bad optics?

Do you even know the definition of cheating, thicko? How did Wigan get an advantage over other clubs through the overspending?

They spent money they weren't allowed to spend. It's against the rules. That is cheating.

Wigan gained an advantage over every other team because everyone else restricted their spending to the cap limits. Every other team would probably have loved to spend another 15 grand, but they couldn't and they didn't. Whether Wigan took the advantage they gained and did anything useful with it is a different matter, but it's a clear material advantage to spend more than everyone else in a salary capped sport.

Who cares, it was only 15K and we only lose 2 points. Just forget it and move on and make sure we win tomorrow.

I highly doubt an extra 15 grand would of made a difference to the league standings or the Grand Final result. Give it a rest, you have a 2 point advantage over us this year.

My mistake. I didn't realise you were the sole arbiter of what constitutes a 'suitable' punishment. Let's just say I disagree and I'll leave you to enjoy your little victories as our sport wheels it's way towards insignificance.

No, you're right, Wigan are the victims here and by enforcing the rules the RFL are condemning rugby league to death.

The RFL do a lot of things wrong, but don't go blaming them for a mess entirely of Wigan's making. It's Wigan who have let the sport down by doing this, nobody else.

Personally I don't think it's that big a deal, they went over the cap and got (in my opinion) appropriately punished for it. My issue is with the righteous indignation in Wigan's statement and from some on these boards. If you're so worried about the game you should write to the Wigan board and suggest that they maybe take their medicine rather than dragging the games name through the mud by suggesting they've been wronged by being punished for cheating. Just a thought.

I think most take issue with the fact that other clubs that breached the cap by a small amount were fined and not deducted points. and it could have been announced last Thursday, or this weekend after the games, but it was announced the day before the first game.

Lenners will sort it!
Win tomorrow and we'll be top of the league anyway!

Ffs mate, park your obvious delight in any Wigan misfortune for a moment and look at the bigger picture. No one has claimed that Wigan are the victims here. The victim is the game itself. The competition has been needlessly devalued again. Just as with the 'pay to play' Cup debacle or any number of other RFL own goals.

I don't care that Wigan are punished for this massive crime(sic) . What I do care about is that, once again the game is belittled by the RFL's ineptitude. This is about revenge. Make no mistake about that. The problem is, in exacting that revenge, they've consigned the season to a farce even before a ball has been kicked or passed. Just asked yourself what the main topic of conversation will be on the sky commentary throughout this season? Will it be about the product on the field as it should be or will everything be viewed in context of this points deduction? We both know the answer to that question.

Punish the club, by all means (if you think the cap is a good idea in the first place) but there was absolutely no need to make it impact on the season in this way. You might be delighting in this misfortune but I strongly suspect your delight will be short lived as I've said on many occasions. Enjoy it while you can.