Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:18 am
wrencat1873
Club Coach
Joined: Apr 24 2011 Posts: 17980
This one will be interesting. The RFL have not been too successful in dealing with these things over the years. The legal team at Wigan ran rings round the governing body in the season that they signed Fielden and Radlinski played for free.
Koucash is likely to test their resolve and if there was a legal challenge to the validity of the cap, things could get really messy.
As someone else has posted, Leigh looked to have spent very heavily last season and it wouldn't be a surprise to see them in the dock when this one has been cleared up.
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:23 am
nottinghamtiger
Player Coach
Joined: Apr 04 2009 Posts: 2833
wrencat1873 wrote:This one will be interesting. The RFL have not been too successful in dealing with these things over the years. The legal team at Wigan ran rings round the governing body in the season that they signed Fielden and Radlinski played for free.
Koucash is likely to test their resolve and if there was a legal challenge to the validity of the cap, things could get really messy.
As someone else has posted, Leigh looked to have spent very heavily last season and it wouldn't be a surprise to see them in the dock when this one has been cleared up.
The trouble has always been that no player has to disclose their earnings to the RFL. They rely wholly on auditing clubs and not players. As long as the club can, in some way, bury the payment then the RFL will find it impossible to discover. What makes this case different is that the player initially involved did disclose his earnings to a tribunal, highlighting the fact he had a contract with another company owned by MK. I imagine the other players who might have had these contracts (Chase, Locke, Hock. Smith) have been quite happy to cooperate with the RFL given the way they were treated by Koukash
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:25 am
nottinghamtiger
Player Coach
Joined: Apr 04 2009 Posts: 2833
wrencat1873 wrote:This one will be interesting. The RFL have not been too successful in dealing with these things over the years. The legal team at Wigan ran rings round the governing body in the season that they signed Fielden and Radlinski played for free.
Koucash is likely to test their resolve and if there was a legal challenge to the validity of the cap, things could get really messy.
As someone else has posted, Leigh looked to have spent very heavily last season and it wouldn't be a surprise to see them in the dock when this one has been cleared up.
The trouble has always been that no player has to disclose their earnings to the RFL. They rely wholly on auditing clubs and not players. As long as the club can, in some way, bury the payment then the RFL will find it impossible to discover. What makes this case different is that the player initially involved did disclose his earnings to a tribunal, highlighting the fact he had a contract with another company owned by MK. I imagine the other players who might have had these contracts (Chase, Locke, Hock. Smith) have been quite happy to cooperate with the RFL given the way they were treated by Koukash
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:28 am
[Gareth]
Club Coach
Joined: Jun 20 2005 Posts: 15795 Location: Listening to the reggae band, Jihad
wrencat1873 wrote:This one will be interesting. The RFL have not been too successful in dealing with these things over the years. The legal team at Wigan ran rings round the governing body in the season that they signed Fielden and Radlinski played for free.
Koucash is likely to test their resolve and if there was a legal challenge to the validity of the cap, things could get really messy.
As someone else has posted, Leigh looked to have spent very heavily last season and it wouldn't be a surprise to see them in the dock when this one has been cleared up.
The thing with Wigan is that 'we' didnt actually break the salary cap i.e. we didnt spend more in that year on wages than we where allowed to. The payments where simply back-loaded into into the contracts which is common practice in plenty of sports (the NFL being a prime example)
The RFL had to be seen to be doing something about it so Wigan got charged with breaking the 'spirit of the cap'
Will be very interesting to see the reaction to Salford's alleged breach
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:29 am
Him
International Board Member
Joined: Jun 19 2002 Posts: 14970 Location: Campaigning for a deep attacking line
meast wrote:is this surprising with the circus that has been going on in the last couple of years.
it's another kick in the teeth for the long time, upstanding supporters of Salford RLFC
Agree with this. However it's all of Koukash's doing. This kind of thing does also highlight the bizarre paranoia of some RL fans. On Twitter I've already seen Salford fans believing the RFL "want to kill the club" or that companies associated with Salford could sue the RFL for loss of earnings. I simply don't understand these people. If I were a Salford fan my anger would be 100% directed at the clown running my club who has put my club into this position.
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:34 am
Him
International Board Member
Joined: Jun 19 2002 Posts: 14970 Location: Campaigning for a deep attacking line
Andy Gilder wrote:Given the new live cap, the only way you can breach it is by making a deliberate attempt to circumvent the cap either by false accounting or under the counter payments.
The problem with the new league structure however, is that a 20 point deduction next week would be meaningless. Even if Salford finish in the bottom four, they'll still start the Qualifiers on a level footing with the rest of the teams around them, which is no different to the position they were in last year. So in effect, given they realistically probably weren't going to make the top four anyway, they haven't lost anything by allegedly trying to cheat the system.
Agree with this. Which is why I think larger punishments need to be handed out with bans for club officials involved.
As for the points deduction as you say with the split into the 8's there has to be a different way of administering the points deduction. So going on a 20 point deduction, I reckon Salford should get a 15 point deduction for the regular season (ie the 23 rounds up until the 8's start) and then a 5 point deduction as soon as the 8's start. As the 8's roughly make up a quarter of the season.
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:39 am
EHW
Club Owner
Joined: Nov 02 2003 Posts: 8627
Andy Gilder wrote:Given the new live cap, the only way you can breach it is by making a deliberate attempt to circumvent the cap either by false accounting or under the counter payments.
The problem with the new league structure however, is that a 20 point deduction next week would be meaningless. Even if Salford finish in the bottom four, they'll still start the Qualifiers on a level footing with the rest of the teams around them, which is no different to the position they were in last year. So in effect, given they realistically probably weren't going to make the top four anyway, they haven't lost anything by allegedly trying to cheat the system.
It would also depend on when the punishment was laid down too. As you say a 20 point deduction now is fairly meaningless....if the investigation takes 5 months, and into August, a 20 point deduction at that point of the season could be fairly disastrous for them if they are in the middle 8 at that point. The RFL can choose the punishment, and when to apply it, without any sort of transparency or accountability into their decision making process.
As usual with the RFL there will inevitably be more questions than answers once this situation is "resolved".
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:42 am
Ferocious Aardvark
International Chairman
Joined: Feb 17 2002 Posts: 28357 Location: MACS0647-JD
The reason such arrangements are likely to end in tears is because without knowing anything about the wages, once a club signs a whole raft of plainly very expensive players, one after another after another, everybody knows they aren't coming for half-pay or out of love and admiration of the chairman. So what's left?
Last edited by Ferocious Aardvark on stardate Jun 26, 3013 11:27 am, edited 48,562,867,458,300,023 times in total
Post subject: Re: Salford Charged with Salary Cap Breach
Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:49 am
meast
International Board Member
Joined: Jun 04 2002 Posts: 15309 Location: huddersfudlia
Him wrote:Agree with this. Which is why I think larger punishments need to be handed out with bans for club officials involved.
As for the points deduction as you say with the split into the 8's there has to be a different way of administering the points deduction. So going on a 20 point deduction, I reckon Salford should get a 15 point deduction for the regular season (ie the 23 rounds up until the 8's start) and then a 5 point deduction as soon as the 8's start. As the 8's roughly make up a quarter of the season.
or make it like Melbourne, where they don't earn any points an start the 8's on -10 or something.
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