Rogues Gallery wrote:According to Phil Wilkinson in tonight's Wigan Observer :-
"One of the lesser-known clauses of the salary cap rules is that for every player who has been in the first team for more than 10 years, only half their salary counts on the £1.65 million wage bill.
That rewards the likes of Kieron Cunningham, Paul Wellens (St. Helens), Paul Deacon (Bradford) and Lee Briers (Warrington) for their service, while also giving their clubs a greater incentive to keep them."
Absolute rubbish.
The rule is that the clubs get a £50K dispensation against the cap for a player who has completed 10 years at the club, but it is limited to one player per club.
So for Saints they can have in effect £50K extra to spend in lieu of either part of Wellens or Longs salaries.
They cannot claim £50K for each.
Lazy journalism.
Thats not quite right Rogue, but you are on the right lines, far more than the newspaper. This is the formal wording:-
"Any player who has played for the same club for at least 10 consecutive seasons will have half his salary excluded from the salary cap for his eleventh and subsequent seasons, subject to a maximum of £50,000 for any one club"
Hence If two players earned £50k a year and had been at a club 11 years then each would only have £25k counted towards the cap.
However if a club had two players who earned £100k a year with 11 years service. Then the RL would only ignore £50k of the two players combined salary of £200k.
