Martin Offiah delivers damning verdict on current state of Super League with major warning

[Wigan_forever1985]

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/rugb ... ngId%7E%7D

So leeds got a top NRL player by getting the NRL team to foot some of the bill

[pedro]

the same we did with trent

[DaveO]

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/rugb ... ngId%7E%7D

So leeds got a top NRL player by getting the NRL team to foot some of the bill

"But the Rhinos have been able to fit him under their salary cap due to the Warriors paying a substantial chunk of his salary."

Why is that allowed under the salary cap? How is this any different from some company agreeing to pay part of a players salary?

That is expressly forbidden under the salary cap rules (and was if I recall correctly what got Bradford in hot water and cost them a big fine when they had Iestyn Harris on their books).

[DaveO]

How would you do it - i.e. bring a new team into the league? I think you're answer in the past is that you can't, but if we want to do this, how could we make it work?

Also, I'm interested in how the sport could attract all this new money that's gong to be required to drop the salary cap etc. Where's the incentive coming from in the current structure? If we dropped the salary cap then maybe a rich chairman would come and throw money at a specific club for personal ego reasons - maybe that's enough. IMO a whole game approach is much better. The whole sport run as one business.

The way I would do it is return to licensing and give the promoted team three seasons to get competitive.

The game in this country is seemingly wedded to P&R so if they went down after three seasons then that's the way it goes.

Personally I would do away with P&R and go to the franchising system completely. If clubs like Featherstone want to be in SL they have to prove they are going to bring something to SL. I have seen articles saying Fev have been SL ready for several seasons but missed out for various reasons including licensing. I am not convinced they add anything given their location but they could, if better run than the likes of Wakefield or Cas, replace one of those teams who have proved unable to offer anything in terms of increasing crowds and so on. Now granted the last time licensing was tried it was not well run at all with Wakefield surviving when even they didn't expect to and Bradford going bust about a month after having been declared financially viable but that doesn't mean its the wrong approach.

The trouble with a whole game approach (as defined by the RFL) is it's just not viable. They want so called professional leagues to operate as if P&R from one to another is straightforward and they fail to grasp relegation form SL is a financial disaster but also spreading the money as thinly as the whole game approach requires is another reason the salary cap can't increase.

Leagues like the NHL and the NRL in Australia expand by adding teams. They don't expect that new team to get relegated or any team to get relegated. They all also get a cut of the sponsorship money and don't spread it over 40 odd teams. If you went through an Expansion Draft like you suggested and then Toulouse got relegated then what happens? Another draft and if some players aren't picked up they have to up sticks from France after one season? The problem is RL is not looking to expand by adding a permanent member of the club but because it is wedded to P&R doesn't have a clue how to deal with the fact the promoted side is relegation fodder or what a financial disaster relegation is. They really do seem to turn a blind eye to the latter.

I don't think Offiash's suggestion of scrapping the cap completely is viable or even desirable but it should go up. That kind of amounts to the same thing in that it was raised to where it should be given inflation which is £2.625m few clubs could spend too it but if Fev came up with a business case saying they could and Cas could not, then under the franchise/licensing system then out go Cas. Cas want to remain in SL? Raise the revenue. The same applies to Wigan. If IL can't afford to bankroll the club to that extent and/or can't arrange lucrative enough sponsorship then maybe raising the cap would coventrate his mind and get him to realise he needs to get other backers in.

All the current salary cap does is make it easy for clubs like Cas to remain in SL and it also means it makes it easier for owners with a limit on their financial resources like IL to remain owners without having to do anything about it.

[widdenoldboy]

How would you do it - i.e. bring a new team into the league? I think you're answer in the past is that you can't, but if we want to do this, how could we make it work?

Also, I'm interested in how the sport could attract all this new money that's gong to be required to drop the salary cap etc. Where's the incentive coming from in the current structure? If we dropped the salary cap then maybe a rich chairman would come and throw money at a specific club for personal ego reasons - maybe that's enough. IMO a whole game approach is much better. The whole sport run as one business.

Sorry Mike, not picking on you but this attitude is key to the problems the game has right now.
I.e. we can't have one club stealing a march on the rest, its every club benefits or no club benefits...so we are held back by Bramley!! If one club starts to dominate then the RL can step in surely?

Look at football in the 80's, not that far ahead of RL at that time but by breaking away the big clubs began generate interest and money, pulling the smaller clubs up.

[josie andrews]

The way I would do it is return to licensing and give the promoted team three seasons to get competitive.

The game in this country is seemingly wedded to P&R so if they went down after three seasons then that's the way it goes.

Personally I would do away with P&R and go to the franchising system completely. If clubs like Featherstone want to be in SL they have to prove they are going to bring something to SL. I have seen articles saying Fev have been SL ready for several seasons but missed out for various reasons including licensing. I am not convinced they add anything given their location but they could, if better run than the likes of Wakefield or Cas, replace one of those teams who have proved unable to offer anything in terms of increasing crowds and so on. Now granted the last time licensing was tried it was not well run at all with Wakefield surviving when even they didn't expect to and Bradford going bust about a month after having been declared financially viable but that doesn't mean its the wrong approach.

The trouble with a whole game approach (as defined by the RFL) is it's just not viable. They want so called professional leagues to operate as if P&R from one to another is straightforward and they fail to grasp relegation form SL is a financial disaster but also spreading the money as thinly as the whole game approach requires is another reason the salary cap can't increase.

Leagues like the NHL and the NRL in Australia expand by adding teams. They don't expect that new team to get relegated or any team to get relegated. They all also get a cut of the sponsorship money and don't spread it over 40 odd teams. If you went through an Expansion Draft like you suggested and then Toulouse got relegated then what happens? Another draft and if some players aren't picked up they have to up sticks from France after one season? The problem is RL is not looking to expand by adding a permanent member of the club but because it is wedded to P&R doesn't have a clue how to deal with the fact the promoted side is relegation fodder or what a financial disaster relegation is. They really do seem to turn a blind eye to the latter.

I don't think Offiash's suggestion of scrapping the cap completely is viable or even desirable but it should go up. That kind of amounts to the same thing in that it was raised to where it should be given inflation which is £2.625m few clubs could spend too it but if Fev came up with a business case saying they could and Cas could not, then under the franchise/licensing system then out go Cas. Cas want to remain in SL? Raise the revenue. The same applies to Wigan. If IL can't afford to bankroll the club to that extent and/or can't arrange lucrative enough sponsorship then maybe raising the cap would coventrate his mind and get him to realise he needs to get other backers in.

All the current salary cap does is make it easy for clubs like Cas to remain in SL and it also means it makes it easier for owners with a limit on their financial resources like IL to remain owners without having to do anything about it.

I’ve said it for years, but the likes of Castleford & Wakefield would have been thrown out on their ground facilities alone!

[DaveO]

The way I would do it is return to licensing and give the promoted team three seasons to get competitive.

The game in this country is seemingly wedded to P&R so if they went down after three seasons then that's the way it goes.

Personally I would do away with P&R and go to the franchising system completely. If clubs like Featherstone want to be in SL they have to prove they are going to bring something to SL. I have seen articles saying Fev have been SL ready for several seasons but missed out for various reasons including licensing. I am not convinced they add anything given their location but they could, if better run than the likes of Wakefield or Cas, replace one of those teams who have proved unable to offer anything in terms of increasing crowds and so on. Now granted the last time licensing was tried it was not well run at all with Wakefield surviving when even they didn't expect to and Bradford going bust about a month after having been declared financially viable but that doesn't mean its the wrong approach.

The trouble with a whole game approach (as defined by the RFL) is it's just not viable. They want so called professional leagues to operate as if P&R from one to another is straightforward and they fail to grasp relegation form SL is a financial disaster but also spreading the money as thinly as the whole game approach requires is another reason the salary cap can't increase.

Leagues like the NHL and the NRL in Australia expand by adding teams. They don't expect that new team to get relegated or any team to get relegated. They all also get a cut of the sponsorship money and don't spread it over 40 odd teams. If you went through an Expansion Draft like you suggested and then Toulouse got relegated then what happens? Another draft and if some players aren't picked up they have to up sticks from France after one season? The problem is RL is not looking to expand by adding a permanent member of the club but because it is wedded to P&R doesn't have a clue how to deal with the fact the promoted side is relegation fodder or what a financial disaster relegation is. They really do seem to turn a blind eye to the latter.

I don't think Offiash's suggestion of scrapping the cap completely is viable or even desirable but it should go up. That kind of amounts to the same thing in that it was raised to where it should be given inflation which is £2.625m few clubs could spend too it but if Fev came up with a business case saying they could and Cas could not, then under the franchise/licensing system then out go Cas. Cas want to remain in SL? Raise the revenue. The same applies to Wigan. If IL can't afford to bankroll the club to that extent and/or can't arrange lucrative enough sponsorship then maybe raising the cap would coventrate his mind and get him to realise he needs to get other backers in.

All the current salary cap does is make it easy for clubs like Cas to remain in SL and it also means it makes it easier for owners with a limit on their financial resources like IL to remain owners without having to do anything about it.

I’ve said it for years, but the likes of Castleford & Wakefield would have been thrown out on their ground facilities alone!

The way licensing was administered was just amateurish but what was even worse they scrapped it without giving it enough time.

[josie andrews]

It worked out for Catalans just long enough for them because they were allowed exemptions for Aussie players

[Mike]

How would you do it - i.e. bring a new team into the league? I think you're answer in the past is that you can't, but if we want to do this, how could we make it work?

Also, I'm interested in how the sport could attract all this new money that's gong to be required to drop the salary cap etc. Where's the incentive coming from in the current structure? If we dropped the salary cap then maybe a rich chairman would come and throw money at a specific club for personal ego reasons - maybe that's enough. IMO a whole game approach is much better. The whole sport run as one business.

Sorry Mike, not picking on you but this attitude is key to the problems the game has right now.
I.e. we can't have one club stealing a march on the rest, its every club benefits or no club benefits...so we are held back by Bramley!! If one club starts to dominate then the RL can step in surely?

Look at football in the 80's, not that far ahead of RL at that time but by breaking away the big clubs began generate interest and money, pulling the smaller clubs up.

The whole sport idea is the opposite to that. If one club does well we all do better. The goal the is brand of super league is enhanced. It's not socialism is market economics. It's how pretty much all US sport work and their players are renumerated better than everyone apart from football.

[Mike]

How would you do it - i.e. bring a new team into the league? I think you're answer in the past is that you can't, but if we want to do this, how could we make it work?

Also, I'm interested in how the sport could attract all this new money that's gong to be required to drop the salary cap etc. Where's the incentive coming from in the current structure? If we dropped the salary cap then maybe a rich chairman would come and throw money at a specific club for personal ego reasons - maybe that's enough. IMO a whole game approach is much better. The whole sport run as one business.

The way I would do it is return to licensing and give the promoted team three seasons to get competitive.

The game in this country is seemingly wedded to P&R so if they went down after three seasons then that's the way it goes.

Personally I would do away with P&R and go to the franchising system completely. If clubs like Featherstone want to be in SL they have to prove they are going to bring something to SL. I have seen articles saying Fev have been SL ready for several seasons but missed out for various reasons including licensing. I am not convinced they add anything given their location but they could, if better run than the likes of Wakefield or Cas, replace one of those teams who have proved unable to offer anything in terms of increasing crowds and so on. Now granted the last time licensing was tried it was not well run at all with Wakefield surviving when even they didn't expect to and Bradford going bust about a month after having been declared financially viable but that doesn't mean its the wrong approach.

The trouble with a whole game approach (as defined by the RFL) is it's just not viable. They want so called professional leagues to operate as if P&R from one to another is straightforward and they fail to grasp relegation form SL is a financial disaster but also spreading the money as thinly as the whole game approach requires is another reason the salary cap can't increase.

Leagues like the NHL and the NRL in Australia expand by adding teams. They don't expect that new team to get relegated or any team to get relegated. They all also get a cut of the sponsorship money and don't spread it over 40 odd teams. If you went through an Expansion Draft like you suggested and then Toulouse got relegated then what happens? Another draft and if some players aren't picked up they have to up sticks from France after one season? The problem is RL is not looking to expand by adding a permanent member of the club but because it is wedded to P&R doesn't have a clue how to deal with the fact the promoted side is relegation fodder or what a financial disaster relegation is. They really do seem to turn a blind eye to the latter.

I don't think Offiash's suggestion of scrapping the cap completely is viable or even desirable but it should go up. That kind of amounts to the same thing in that it was raised to where it should be given inflation which is £2.625m few clubs could spend too it but if Fev came up with a business case saying they could and Cas could not, then under the franchise/licensing system then out go Cas. Cas want to remain in SL? Raise the revenue. The same applies to Wigan. If IL can't afford to bankroll the club to that extent and/or can't arrange lucrative enough sponsorship then maybe raising the cap would coventrate his mind and get him to realise he needs to get other backers in.

All the current salary cap does is make it easy for clubs like Cas to remain in SL and it also means it makes it easier for owners with a limit on their financial resources like IL to remain owners without having to do anything about it.

If we go to a franchise system with salary cap now will that create investment in the game?

Who decides whether a new dream "adds value" when we have an organization structure that allows individual clubs to use self interest to decide a north American presence isn't a long term benefit. If the sport was centrally owned then "Barley" couldn't veto a positive.move for the whole spot that was negative for "Barley" or whoever.

A whole game perspective is needed. now.