Murdoch Massila

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DaveO
Posts: 15880
Joined: Mon Sep 30, 2002 5:32 pm

Re: Murdoch Massila

Post by DaveO »

markill wrote: Tue May 14, 2019 12:57 pm
DaveO wrote: Mon May 13, 2019 11:19 pm
markill wrote: Fri May 10, 2019 1:12 pm I'll just repeat on the rules, as there is a caveat that means the salary cap rules are not hard and fast as you seem to have interpreted DaveO.

"The HDPGS shall then determine whether they should be included in a players Salary Cap Value" (HDPGS is the head of competitions and salary cap at RFL, Samantha Allen). So, that means there is some scope for payments to spouses as long as it's declared to and agreed by the HDPGS.
You are misinterpreting the rules. The text you refer to comes at the end of section 5.2.2 which deals with who else makes payments to the player as in for example sponsors as opposed to the club directly.

The full text is:

"A club shall disclose the details of any agreements or arrangements (verbal or written) between its players and any of the above parties promptly on becoming aware of the same. The HDPGS shall then determine whether they shall be included in in a players Salary Cap Value"

This is clearly to do with whether or not 3rd party payments to the player should be counted on the cap. Not whether payments made by the club to the player or his relatives including his wife as defined in section 5.2.1 should be.

The bit in bold is key. The club paying a players wife a salary is not an arrangement between the player and his wife! It's the club making a payment that is explicitly listed in section 5.2.1 as a payment that should count on the salary cap value. There are no exceptions listed in section 5.2.1.
Fair dos. Yes I've interpreted the caveat to apply to the whole section 5.2 and not just that subsection 5.2.2 as you highlight. So I agree it would appear to be against the rules if the payments are true, and if it isn't being included in BMM's salary cap value - two things we do not know of course.

Although I would still suggest that this isn't the purpose of the rules. I would expect it to become caveated in some way, shape or form as lots of other section of the regulations are. Anyone with appropriate skills getting a reasonable market-value wage for those skills shouldn't be prevented from employment on the basis of their spouses employment, unless there is a clear conflict of interest. I'm not sure there would be here under those provisions.
This is just one of the paradoxes of the salary cap. The rules were obviously formulated so you could not pay a players relative or his partner a wedge of cash to circumvent the cap. It's a fairly obvious ruse to get around it.

It doesn't actually prevent a club from employing a players wife anyway. It just means if they do her salary counts on the cap.

If a players spouse applied for genuine employment at a club, such as a physio, it would be interesting to see what happened if she was passed over due to the salary cap regs if this could be proved. If the rule was deemed discriminatory, removing it as a result would make the salary cap unenforceable. Trying to argue one spouse's salary should not count on the cap and anothers should is a minefield.

In fact a club could probably engineer such a challenge if it wanted to.

Like you say we don't know if her wages are in BMM's salary cap value but if they aren't the RFL just blew a hole in its salary cap regulations.

The rule about a spouse's salary were written when no one had any idea clubs would run a womens team and actually pay them and were designed to prevent bogus employment being used as a way around the cap. The advent of women's professional RL has given them a problem.
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