Salary Cap Hearing

[standishwarrior]

i agree fraggle but seeing as wigan pushed so hard for the punishment to be from last season did it not make you think that they new they was in trouble?im relieved we only got 4 points as it could have been alot worse! i still think well make the playoffs though!however wigan new that signing fielding would take them over the cap, the way i see it and i might be wrong the deferred payments could be classed as technical interpretations, it does say that the spirit of the cap and its objectives (which i see as trying to stop clubs going over the 1.6 salery cap limit) should take prioty over these technical interpretations which is right and if thats the case wigan have broke the rules!!

[cpwigan]

1.3 resembles the small print used when con men dupe the poor and the elderly. It is a get out clause whereby the enforcing body can say we can change our minds whenever we feel like.

[GeoffN]

robjoenz posted:

Fraggle posted:
It's there in black and white that they reserve the right to make up rulings based on anything they don't agree with, which seems a funny way to run a sport. It's a bit like being arrested for shoplifting, but then being told that they think you're a bad person so they are also going to charge you with some other things they haven't yet thought of but which would be appropriate for a bad person.

I don't understand your analogy Fraggle; Wigan have spent more than the quota for the 2006 season. They granted themselves the right to spend more than the other side around them thus unleveling the playing field (isn't that section 1.2 of the cap?).

They aren't being punished for something they haven't done as far as I can see.

No they haven't, Rob, that's the whole point.
They've promised to spend more money this year, which is a totally different thing, and not against the rules as written.
It's the interpretation of that "spirit of the cap" clause that is the problem - the RFL can basically decide whatever they like.

[cpwigan]

In effect we are now being punished twice. By deferring payments we had to run with at least one less player than we could have used. Possibly 2. So we paid the penalty anyway.

[mano]

This is bit of topic.
mike withers as cost wigan about 60K thats with is wages and is pay off.

[robjoenz]

GeoffN posted:
No they haven't, Rob, that's the whole point.
They've promised to spend more money this year, which is a totally different thing, and not against the rules as written.
It's the interpretation of that "spirit of the cap" clause that is the problem - the RFL can basically decide whatever they like.

Every club, including Wigan, agreed to the salary cap and also, last season, agreed to double the punishment for breaking it. Wigan reneged on that, lets call it, 'gentlemans agreement.' Justify it by the RFLs naivity to not update the byelaws if you want but it doesn't take away from Wigan's lack of integrity. I can fully understand why supporters of other clubs see it as Wigan thinking they're above the rules.

Abiding by the 'spirit of the salary cap' is open to interpretation, yes. Admitedly it is my opinion but I thought that spirit was to prevent clubs from overspending and to level the playing field. OK, the former may not affect Wigan but they definately unlevelled the playing field. They stood up and said, 'we're above the salary cap.' They wanted to remain in SL no matter what, whether that meant fiddling contracts about so that they could employ more, better quality players than other sides around them in the league.

What does rugby league stand for? The reason I was attracted to RL was because it's a game played by honest people that hadn't been taken over by money and corruption like football had. What Wigan have done does not reflect those values that I respect. It shows two fingers to the authority that are trying to enforce the rules that every SL club has agreed to abide by.

[robjoenz]

cpwigan posted:
1.3 resembles the small print used when con men dupe the poor and the elderly. It is a get out clause whereby the enforcing body can say we can change our minds whenever we feel like.

Can you really not see how Wigan have acted against the spirit of the salary cap, Allan?

[Matthew]

robjoenz posted:
Every club, including Wigan, agreed to the salary cap and also, last season, agreed to double the punishment for breaking it. Wigan reneged on that, lets call it, 'gentlemans agreement.' Justify it by the RFLs naivity to not update the byelaws if you want but it doesn't take away from Wigan's lack of integrity. I can fully understand why supporters of other clubs see it as Wigan thinking they're above the rules.

So why no criticism of saints for standing against the doubling of punishments, Rob? By your logic they acted on something that didn't effect them and helped our cause. We would have been less likely to have been able to be punished with last years tariff if we had been on our own.

robjoenz posted:
Abiding by the 'spirit of the salary cap' is open to interpretation, yes. Admitedly it is my opinion but I thought that spirit was to prevent clubs from overspending and to level the playing field. OK, the former may not affect Wigan but they definately unlevelled the playing field. They stood up and said, 'we're above the salary cap.' They wanted to remain in SL no matter what, whether that meant fiddling contracts about so that they could employ more, better quality players than other sides around them in the league.

What does rugby league stand for? The reason I was attracted to RL was because it's a game played by honest people that hadn't been taken over by money and corruption like football had. What Wigan have done does not reflect those values that I respect. It shows two fingers to the authority that are trying to enforce the rules that every SL club has agreed to abide by.

It has been proved elsewhere that wishy-washy rules do not work in sport. The RFL should have done the job properly and made sure they had closed the loopholes; rather than employing a "plus anything else we decide to make up over morning coffee" rule. If it was written in black and white in the cap that deferred payments weren't allowed, then I would agree that we deserved to be punished.

We have handicapped ourselves by £200K for this season - does the RFL not think that it has affected our season? Knowing what we do now we should have just spent the money; as trying to balance out the cap and being honest about it has done us no favours.

When we found ourselves in trouble last season, I dare say we could have gone the route of offshore payments - like many other clubs are rumoured to have done (and looking at some teams signings; will be doing next year) and spent far more than we did - because we can afford to. Your quote about how all the other teams agreed to the cap will look a bit daft if/when the offshore account investigation hits RL. We tried to stay inside the rules and kept our payments above board by exploiting a gap in legislation and thereby avoiding relegation.

It seems we are being punished for exploiting the stupidity of the RFL; whilst in all possibility others get away with far larger infringements

[cpwigan]

Have Wigan overspent though Rob?

In 2006, they spent the cap money, no more

In 2007, they will spend their cap money which will include deferred payments. The club released players, recruited less players than we as fans anticipated nor could understand at the time.

So if you take 2006 and 2007 together, Wigan have not overspent

If a business is performing badly, very often in order to maintain its existence they reach a compromise with their employees regarding salaries / contracts. Employees may go without salary payments in the short term, agree to new contracts, working conditions etc etc.

So Wigan RLFC applied business practices to a business (sport). From 2006 to the end of 2007 they never overspent. They acted to avoid something which the RFL has indicated is poor business practice and they wish to dispense with (relegation). The alternative to using a loophole is relegation. That is unthinkable. We would have lost our entire first team. Our loophole seems far better than the use of offshore accounts that the rest of this hypocritical RFL community utilise.

Two things to remember about the salary cap. Its implementation is dictated by the lower clubs who simply 'bully' the top clubs using their majority vote. So when you say Wigan RLFC agreed to X, Y, Z. That is patently not true Rob. ML has gone to press several times stating he would like to see the salary cap ammended. Guess what, whatever Wigan RLFC want or other top clubs is dependent on the lower clubs allowing them. What Wigan RLFC get is what those lower clubs want. We have no choice, no voice. Yet, ironically those lower clubs regularly carp about the likes of Wigan RLFC getting their own way blah blah. he future of SL RFL is dictated by the inept, poor clubs. Hence, we maintain a status quo of mediocrity that they are quite happy to wallow in.

Secondly, the cap is badly organised and managed by the RFL. They have admitted that in having to ammend their management strategy. Rule 1.3 is an excuse for bad management. I can only think of 2 other examples of such a rules. One is where large public venues have a, the management retain the right ..... and con men contracts to exploit the poor / elderly.

Where does this 'spirit of the gam' end. If people embrace it then I expect them to vehemently condemn the fielding of weak teams, the switching of cup games to the opposition stadium, the use of foul play, the use of negative tatics, the use of wrestling techniques etc etc.

[weststand-rich]

Matthew posted:

We have handicapped ourselves by £200K for this season - does the RFL not think that it has affected our season? Knowing what we do now we should have just spent the money; as trying to balance out the cap and being honest about it has done us no favours.

Agreed, in retrospect when breaching the salary cap, we should have just spent the money and took the points on the chin because the technical wrangling has got us nowhere - just cost us barrister fees and all the RFL legal costs. That is not going to be cheap!

To be honest it's a credit to the players that so many of them were prepared to assist the club in this fashion. Okay, their lacklustre performances/ inuries/awful coach in the first half of 2006 put us in the positon where we felt we had to breach. But no player had to surrender any part of their contract to help the club out. It's obviously in their long term interests but still...