English Rugby union hampered by salary cap! : Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:45 pm  

According to todays Express the english premiership simply cannot compete with the french who have no salary cap when English RU is restricted to just £4 million!
Just adds even more laughter to Noble saying if we had another £50k we could sign some RU players, try £500k+

Re: English Rugby union hampered by salary cap! : Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:12 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

According to todays Express the english premiership simply cannot compete with the french who have no salary cap when English RU is restricted to just £4 million!
Just adds even more laughter to Noble saying if we had another £50k we could sign some RU players, try £500k+

He never said that.

Re: English Rugby union hampered by salary cap! : Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:16 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

He never said that.

He did.

He never said that we'd get them for £50k, but his whole premise is that if each club had an extra £50k they could all go out and sign an RU international.

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:24 pm  

What he said was that only £50K of their salary would count on the salary cap, the rest would / could be funded by sponsorship.

As I said if someone can go and find me another Boston, Vollenhoven, Offiah, etc then I'll buy into it.

We've got to face facts that we are not producing decent backs at the moment for whatever reason. Superleague is 13 years old and we are currently worse than we have ever been at top level.

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:28 pm  

He definitely implied that if he had another £50k he could make a major signing the rest paid for by sponsorship, what the other £500k of an international RU players contract? i dont think so brian!

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:45 pm  

Saint Simon wrote:

He definitely implied that if he had another £50k he could make a major signing the rest paid for by sponsorship, what the other £500k of an international RU players contract? i dont think so brian!

no he didnt, he quite clearly said that £50k would count on the SC, the rest wouldnt, they could pay the player £8.2m a year if they could afford it, but only £50k would count on the cap

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:46 pm  

What he said is that Superleague Clubs should be allowed to sign top class Rugby Union players (if they wanted) up to a maximum of one per team.

Only £50K of their salary would be counted on the cap, the rest funded from sponsorship.

So the Superleague club in fact only risks £50K per year, but it has to find sponsorship for the rest.

I've seen the arguments that say the money should be invested into other area i.e. Junior RL but as I said we've had 13 years of Superleague and gone backwards at the very top level. We are NOT producing enough quality young players particularly in the backs.

I'm not saying Nobles idea is perfect, it certainly isn't, but let's not just throw it out without decent debate, clarification and if necessary amendment.

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:56 pm  

Rogues Gallery wrote:

What he said is that Superleague Clubs should be allowed to sign top class Rugby Union players (if they wanted) up to a maximum of one per team.

Only £50K of their salary would be counted on the cap, the rest funded from sponsorship.

So the Superleague club in fact only risks £50K per year, but it has to find sponsorship for the rest.

I've seen the arguments that say the money should be invested into other area i.e. Junior RL but as I said we've had 13 years of Superleague and gone backwards at the very top level. We are NOT producing enough quality young players particularly in the backs.

I'm not saying Nobles idea is perfect, it certainly isn't, but let's not just throw it out without decent debate, clarification and if necessary amendment.

The thing is that none of the Super League clubs could attract such stupid spending and those that potentially could include Leeds and Wigan. It's easy to see why Nobby would like such an idea, as Wigan spent 10 years under Mo trying to find new ways to spend themselves into bankruptcy. Is anyone really going to 'sponsor' Cas £500,000 per season so they can sign Danny Cipriani? I doubt it. Noble has firmly lost the plot.

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:57 pm  

i say we should just raise the salary cap 2 2.5 million

: Tue Feb 17, 2009 4:59 pm  

joe d saint wrote:

i say we should just raise the salary cap 2 2.5 million

And have a 'Super 6' competiton when half the teams go to the wall?

The vast majority of Super League clubs lose hundreds of thousands per season, giving them room to spend more would risk the future of those clubs.

You have to remember that the salary cap was introduced purely as a reaction to League's most famous club, Wigan RL spending themselves into bankruptcy. Letting clubs spend more would just mean adding £Xm to the bottom line losses.