hi all,

has anyone ever wondered why we have a salary cap in RL ?
Nobby brought this up a few weeks ago, it is persuading our promising youth to g to RU,
therefore killing our game.
Why o why is there a cap in RL, the youth go and get huge amounts with RU for scrum, collapse, scrum, collapse, scrum, collapse, scrum, collapse, finally no collapse, they boot it away.

Salary cap is killing RL
agree or disagree ??

cheers

For years the RL sides could plunder who they wanted from Union as it was an Amateur sport. We could offer them a full time professional career out of the game when Union could not.

Now the shoe is on the other foot and we have to deal with it pretty much.

The salary cap is in place to prevent clubs spending themselves into oblivion.

Without it the sport would be in much worse shape as there's a chance that clubs would now be out of business paying wages they couldn't afford in an attempt to compete.

The RU salary cap is £4m - they have on average 35-40 man 1st team squads so that is about £100k per man average salary. The big boost is for international players as that can treble your salary with sponsorship & appearances. I think only Leicester Tigers made a profit last financial year which is available. All the other clubs had sugar daddies to bail them out.

The distorting factor is the French league which has no salary cap.

RL salary cap is £1.8m with average 25 man 1st team squads so about £72k per man.

At club level that is not a huge difference. If an RL player (be it established or a youngster) wish to make their fortune in RU - they need to be good enough to break into the international side to access the big bucks. Or become a defence coach

I think the salary cap is good for the game BUT in fairness to the players it should be increased every year in line with inflation.

If there was no salary cap, the clubs with the wealthiest owners would run away with the competition. Clubs like Bulls would struggle to survive, certainly not at that level.

Wigan Wire and Hudds would probably do what Wigan did in the 1980s, and spend far far more than anyone else.

Leeds and Saints, run by prudent and sensible guys now, would probably try to keep up for a bit then say this is stupid. They'd probably be amongst the first to argue for a return of the cap, since they would suffer from being "so near and yet so far".

The moderately wealthy owners of HKR and Salford are probably stretched as it is, and I can't see THEM wanting a free for all. They'd soon peel off.

Bulls and Hull FC would peel off at the same time, I think, saying they can't compete with bankrolled clubs.

Cas, Wakey - history.

London, Crusaders, Catalans - WOULD be history, but the RFL would find some means of keeping them going.

Result would be a top three no-one could get near to. Make it top 4 or 5 if Leeds and/or Saints decided to give them a run for their money in the spending arms race. And the end of the competition, since Sky would not pay to keep seeing the same teams destroy everyone else.

Unless, of course, some rich guys came in from outside on the promise of loads MORE Sky money for a superdupersuperleague.

And do it again...some things never change...

A fair assessment.

I wonder if there is a case for increasing the cap for the sake of driving up standards? Being able to attract high calibre NRL players and retaining promising youngsters would be the best way to improve the quality of SL IMO. I suspect the bar could be raised significantly enough to a level so that the top 8 or so clubs could still afford to pay a full cap. I'd also argue that SL could be trimmed by 2-4 teams (Cas and Wakey for starters) to improve the quality of the player pool. The extra Sky money saved could be used to allow the other clubs to improve their cap expenditure...

I support a salary cap but I have never understood by what logic it was never index linked. I know we are in a time of low inflation but in the past we've surely had a situation where year on year the cap is worth less than the year before.

I would prefer seeing standards of play remain the same over the next couple of seasons if it meant more youngsters got their chance and improved to the point we were competitive nationally. Paying for NRL players (unless they are eligible for England RL squad) rarely helps the youngsters unless the player is of a calibre that they can pass their knowledge on to the next generation of players.

Shaggoth makes a good point about inflation but do players have contracts where their wages increase with inflation? If not then, IMO, don't change it.

I was thinking more of when a new contract is being negotiated. A player would surely have a reasonable expectation of obtaining a wage increase in line with inflation. However against a static salary cap that could prove problematic for the club.

Its not low inflation now though.

Low wage inflation maybe, but prices are soaring. And you ain't seen nothing yet IMO. Just watch those price points soar far ahead of the 2.5% VAT increase on 4/1.

You don't notice it quite as much if you have a mortgage, since interest rates remain at historic record lows and inflation gradually repays part of your loan for you.

You really notice it though if you have paid your mortgage off or on a fixed income. Inflation is basically theft from savers to give to borrowers.

The problem with wage inflation in SL is influenced very heavily by three factors:

1. Self-inflicted. The reduction in the quota plus the insistence on more and more home-grown means demand for good, home-grown players has been soaring. Supply of course takes ages to catch up. And we all know what happens when demand exceeds supply?

2. Collapse of Sterling. It costs half as much again to get the same amount of AUD or NZD to an import as it did two years ago. And that is before the big pay rises looming in the NRL...

3. HMRC. The major hacking-back of the so-called avoidance devices (evasion according to HMRC) means it costs a lot more now to get the same net pay to more senior players, especially imports.

Net result is that, for the same money, you get a lot less bang for your bucks now. (Unless you are Warrington, of course, where special rules seem to apply

)

Something that all those who struggle to see why we don't have a team full of superstars any more when we are still spending the salary cap could maybe reflect on?

But overall, you would expect a reduction in quality if player costs to the club have been rising substantially but the cap has not.

But if the cap WAS raised, how many of the current SL clubs could afford to spend it?

See y earlier post...

Union can afford more than we can and can also offer much greater celebrity status to those who play it. Consequently there will always be some young RL players who take up the game. However, union's income is being hit hard and the current tendency within the English premiership is for smaller squads. While this continues, the number of players transferring is likely to decrease as fewer will be offered the chance.