No, we wouldn't. We wouldn't get £320k because that isn't our loss. It's what we would have paid Tomkins. An employer's loss is the cost to it of finding a new employee. There might be examples where you could point to some other loss flowing from his breach of contract, if for example the player was the star player in the team - I gave the example of a sponsor backing out of a deal because a player was no longer there, but I don't think these would apply to Joel.

The cost of training him is irrelevant. Employers can't claim normal training costs back as far as I am aware.

I think we all expect a deal to be done shortly. RU have oodles of cash and a desperate need to get the player across in a clean and quick way so they will pay a premium over what they would have to pay in litigation but people expecting over 500k are likely to be very disappointed.

There is one thing that might work in Wigan's favour and that is both RU and RL are affiliated to Sport England.

The idea of one affiliated governing body using central funds to facilitate the poaching of a player from another ought to be something the RFL complain about. I am sure RU would say they aren't using any Sport England cash to fund the move but if they have enough cash to fling at our players from central funds they don't need their Sport England grants in the first place. I doubt the RFL would even think of investigating this because quite frankly I doubt they are even remotely interested despite the warnings such as this:

[urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_league/15295811.stm[/url

OK he is on about a drain to the NRL but it highlights the issues. I think it is pretty clear Wigan are doing a great job on marketing with revenues up and so on, great job with the crowd increases and lots of initiatives such the heritage day the "big one" games but the RFL need to get off their backsides and look to strart growing revenue that they can distrubute to club in the same way the RFU so.

We wont get 320k just because thats left on his contract but looking at the situation if it did go to court we could get that figure if represented correctly. I didnt really explain that very well



The training is relevent because its money and time weve invested in that player which would obviously be money burned if he just walked away. You can also play the England international and future potential card.

Apparantley court cases of this kind are different to normal working tribunal cases. Different things are taken into account. I know somebody at another sporting club who has experienced a few of these cases and he said they get very messy and usually the club losing the player can get the value of his remaining contract at least as long as they have the right legal team. He said 90% of time it doesnt get that far though because both sides end up worse off.

FWIW i doubt we will get over 500k either but iw did get that (500k) I would be pretty happy.

Not sure where you're getting your info from, but this wouldn't be a tribunal case. Wigan would be suing in High Court for breach of contract.

Any court can get things wrong - that's the inhererent uncertainty of any legal system - so there will be examples of over recovery by employers but the bottom line is that Wigan would only be entitled to claim for their losses (subject to their duty to mitigate) not some vague "value of the contract", let alone a figure based on what they were paying JT.

Their losses wouldn't include any value ascribed by Wigan to training him, I'm not sure where you've got that from and I don't understand what playing the international card means in this context. The cost to Wigan of finding a similar (international) standard player would be included in the damages. But that wouldn't be massive.

I'm not sure what legal basis there is for saying that sports clubs should be treated differently from other employers. Every case is looked at on its own facts and I suppose industry practice to a limited degree is relevant in interpreting the terms of the contract, but I can't see why the High Court would view this differently? I think you are confusing transfers within the same sport where clubs hold registrations and can block transfers with this very different situation.

Maybe a few things i have said may not apply in this case considering the cases i got told about were in a same sport scenario



Like you've said about the uncertainty of the legal system though, the whole thing would be a minefield. Nobody can say for sure how the case would be viewed or how it would pan out which probably helps us because the RFU are less likely to go down that route unless absolutley necessary.

It's a bit football-esque but by holding out and selling a player for a large sum as opposed to receiving so called compensation. It could go either two ways, it would put off union clubs or league clubs would make shed loads of money, which I hope would raise the value of our game and thus an increase in the salary cap alongside other benefits.

It is probably wishful thinking by myself but it's a thought nonetheless.

I hope I'm wrong. I love RL and if the clubs aren't in as weak a position as they seem to be then that would be great, they should screw the RU clubs for as much as they can and use that money to build up RL. Sadly I don't think the return is going to be that good.

Which Tuilagi? There are 7 brothers in all and apparently all play Rugby.

if you reveal who tells you then they tell you naff all in the future but from the same source Sam has no intention of leaving for the time being at least

This thread raises some interesting points that I hadn't thought about before re players contracts. To me, Wigan have a contract with tomkins, if he decides not to see out that contract then Wigan would have a case against him, and not against any future employer. An ru club may decide to pay compensation to ease the process, but I don't see any other obligation on them. For instance, Mundine walked away from rugby to be a boxer, I don't think st georges could have made a claim for compensation from his boxing manager? Similarly, if a player walks out and becomes a builder, the club couldn't claim compensation from the new employer, but could sue the player for breach of contract, probably unsuccessfully. RU may be a similar sport to ours, but legally would probably be treated no differently to bob the builder.

Rumour going round that Nathan Hindmarsh is coming in to replace the Hoff.
Would have to pay him megabucks if its true

Well theoretically Wigan could try for an injunction to stop him playing another sport because that would mean he was not making himself available to fulfil his contract with Wigan. That is why the RU club would pay compensation. To stop Wigan doing that as he would not be much use to them if he could not play. While some would argue that in practical terms Wigan would not do this if he just walked out and started playing RU Wigan would be mad not to. However while an RU side might not have an obligation to pay compensation they know it is equally impractical to just start playing him.

That'd be awesome. Won't happy IMO though...

And this is where we start getting into a very grey area. If a player walks out on a club and becomes a bin man, would a court grant an injunction to stop him working? And in the eyes of a court, is a bin man any different to a rugby union player. I think you are right in that an ru club are likely to pay a fee to grease the wheels of the process, but of a bloody minded player or club challenged this, I think we could easily end up with another bosman situation, in which case contracts really would be worthless

A player wanting to leave a club to be a bin man would be in effect retiring from the game and from sport. A player wanting to leave a club to go an play RU would not be retiring from sport and the courts are not completely stupid. They would easily see the difference and rule accordingly in each case.

As to a new Bosman ruling no RU club would be daft enough to force the issue to get Joel to such and extent that we end up with more changes to the law governing players contracts that [iwould[/i allow him to walk away for free. If they did that any new change on the law would apply equally to their players as well. So any of their players who fancied going to play in France or for another English club could just walk out of the door in exactly the same way.

So at the end of the day despite the conventional wisdom that contracts are not enforceable I think they actually are because if RU forced the issue in such as way as making Joel's contract with Wigan worthless then that would make all their players contracts worthless as well and they won't want that.

It then boils down to Wigan deciding if they want to let Joel leave or not with all the usual discussions about keeping a player who wants away etc.

Given the situation it's quite feasible for Wigan to sue both Tomkins and the RU club. Tomkins for breach of contract and the RU club for being complicit in breaking that contract. It won't happen of course because some kind of compensation will be agreed between the clubs and there's no way Saracens would take a player still under contract at another club without that club's agreement.

www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... _1_3882105

www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... _1_3882105

If we didnt bother signing lauaki we could easily give joel alot better contract and we have lost Hoffman, coley etc wages if joel is leaving for money obviously wigan dont think hes worth anymore money than hes on. The £400,000 a year contract is Boll*cks its more like £150,000. Surley wigan could give him £120,000 and if he wont say for that then hes crazy after watching the Rugby union world cup players like joel what like to run with ball and score tries is not what there all about. Even All Blacks and Wallabies was about kicking and scruming. Also i think give Ashton another 12 month and he wont be in England Squad from what i have heard. At least in RL he knows he can play and enjoy the game and he will get a decent wage till hes about 33 in union if he gets a 3 year deal and it goes wrong when he wants to come back RL he will get less than what hes on now and if they have ruined him he will be retired for 30

are in a mess financially and we are stronger than that.” Did he really say that?

RU clubs have much higher incomes than RL clubs. Even if every RU premiership club went into admin because their investors pulled out most would come out of admin in better shape than any SL club due to the higher TV money, higher sponsorship revenue and higher matchday revenue (even the small clubs make a mint as they charge far more for tickets than RL clubs). IL needs to face up to the reality of the situation I'm afraid.

Lenegan is obviously basing his comments on both the revenue and cost base, you statement above completely ignores the costs in RU and is based solely on revenue. I think I'll go with the successful self-made multi-millionaire on this one.

Me too, bang on there. When a club is losing lots of money its a ticking time bomb that could implode at any moment. You can have all the razzmatazz and attention you want in RU but if a club goes bust then whats the point? From a business standpoint we are much stronger as we dont spend beyond our means and weve had success and also turned a profit at the same time.

The premier league has got similar problems in that theres a lot of clubs in there with huge debts who just use the tv money to service it. The will hit that fan at some point though unless they smarten up business wise.

Go with whoever you like!

There are far wealthier and more successful businessmen involved in RU than in RL so I'd suggest they and the RFU probably have a better idea of how to build a sport than the RL club owners and the RFL. Are you really with IL on this one, that club RU is in a worse state than RL financially? RL clubs can't even pay 70% in real terms of the player salaries that they were paying at the outset of the SC. They're absolutely on the breadline in professional sport terms. RU clubs may need to rein in spending but it would be quite easy for them to do so against a backdrop of very strong TV, corporate and spectator revenue.

Let's look at the evidence since RU went professional only 15 years ago... RL has gone backwards in that period, club RU has gone from a one man and a dog spectator sport to a bigger spectator sport than club RL..... how many SL clubs have gone into admin or got into serious financial difficulties in that period... how many RU premiership clubs have gone into admin or got into serious financial difficulties in that period...??? Hmmm. I know who I'd go with....

If you're expecting RU at club level to suffer significantly due to overspending then that's wishful thinking I'm afraid. It will continue to grow and outstrip RL at club level, even if the odd club gets in difficulties (and RU would have to get things very wrong to have as many clubs go bust as RL!!). RU management isn't great but it's streets ahead of RL.

You've made the classic mistake of confusing turnover for financial health, and as I've already stated completely ignored the very different cost base in both sports. The fact all these sugar daddies are running up huge losses despite these higher revenue streams in order to try to remain competitive should also be a clue.

"Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity".

SO who should I believe about the state of Wigan RL's business? Extremely successful businessman who has built-up his own £ multi-million business and would know the true state of Wigan RL's finances or Deano G with a salary cap fixation?

Should RU clubs need to trim their cloth they can. Many RL clubs can't even turn a profit with the benefit of the SC, that's the sad truth for RL. RL is in a parlous state. RU clubs are simply overspending.

Your argument is also based on the premise that the sugar daddies will walk away or not be replaced by other, perhaps even wealthier sugar daddies (my money would be on the latter, as RU gets even higher in profile it will attract the mega-wealthy, like football, a super-rich elite for whom losses of many millions of pounds are just not an issue). At some point, as with football, there will be a correction, but their game will be so far ahead of ours by then that it's just pure fantasy to imagine it will crash down to a lower level than RL.



I'd swap our clubs' position for theirs in a heartbeat. If you wouldn't that's up to you.