[Gareth] wrote: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'

roofaldo2 wrote:True, however it's the nature of the breach that's in question.

When Saints, Bradford and Halifax all breached in the same year, that was down to poorly worded rules regarding 3rd party payments and player image rights. Because the RFL were partly to blame for the breach due to poor wording of the rules the clubs ended up with just 2 point deductions.

If Salford have two sets of books and have therefore deliberately set out to not only breach the cap but to smash it into a million pieces, then the RFL have to hit them with the most severe penalty that they can. Also, Bradford and Halifax could take some form of legal action as had Salford been penalised during the season they committed the offences (2015) then Salford would have finished bottom of the middle 8's and the million pound game would have been at Odsal between the two of them. Go one further, if Salford were doing this back in 2014 then Bradford have even more reason to be aggrieved as they'd not have been relegated.

Him wrote:I agree re the severity. This isn't like other cases in British RL and the only comparative example I can think of is the Melbourne case, which ended with large fines, large points deductions, club officials banned and some were even looking at criminal charges at one point.
I'm not sure re Bradford & Halifax taking legal advice. They'd have to prove the RFL were negligent in not uncovering the alleged deception before the end of the 2015 season. That would seem doubtful since all this came out with the Tony Puletua case.

If proved, this is THE most serious breach of operational rules as I can remember. I can't see what other case would warrant the maximum penalty so it has to be the full 20 points for me. As I've said previously, with the new system, give them a 15 point penalty for the regular season and a 5 point penalty in the 8's.

Him wrote:. If proved, this is THE most serious breach of operational rules as I can remember. I can't see what other case would warrant the maximum penalty so it has to be the full 20 points for me. As I've said previously, with the new system, give them a 15 point penalty for the regular season and a 5 point penalty in the 8's.

roofaldo2 wrote:I would think that it would be a 20 point deduction for the season so that when the split occurred and remaining point deduction was carried over.