Salary Cap Hearing

[tex]

Automatic I fully agree we need to support the life blood of our game young players.

I would also add is it not against "the sprit of the gamee" to award the highest paid director at the RFL a 10.8% wage rise in 2006 even though revenues fell approx 2 million pounds from previous year, 2005 12.8 mill to 2006 10.8 mill.(all in annual reports RFL web site)
Is this yet another case of one rule for me and another rule for everyone else.

[Fujiman]

tex posted:
Automatic I fully agree we need to support the life blood of our game young players.

I would also add is it not against "the sprit of the gamee" to award the highest paid director at the RFL a 10.8% wage rise in 2006 even though revenues fell approx 2 million pounds from previous year, 2005 12.8 mill to 2006 10.8 mill.(all in annual reports RFL web site)
Is this yet another case of one rule for me and another rule for everyone else.

Of course it is He's a boss

[LORENZO]

Questions.
It is suggested that we are making good the shortfall to players this year. If the payments are spread over 3-4 years do they apply to the salary cap in those years also? Or, as we have already been punished, do we disclose the payments as back pay for 2006?
Secondly, if we are over the cap this year do we start next season with a minus points figure as the cap will be measured monthly next year?

Finally. Let's just take it on the chin. If the team had not played so badly as to allow Hull K.R. Wakey and others to amass points against us we would still be in the top six and, I suspect, there would not be such a fuss from our own supporters.
To quote from the bible I think MO should say to the RL Board- 'Let him that is without sin throw the first stone'
Interesting comments from London's director on boots'nall last night who, I think, thought we had a reasonable case.

[Warrior4eva]

Some people need to take off their rose tinted glasses.
Did Wigan overspend? No, but they did defer payments as they had over promised wages to player which would have caused them to overspend. They have tried to find a loophole to get out of the mess, and agree with the RFL that it is against the spirit of the game.
Forgetting this season, lets spend £3million pounds on players wages and buy the best players and we can next season and then just defer £1.4million to next season and so on. We will be under the salary cap every year but that would be 'against the spirit of the salary cap.
People mention these offshore accounts. The RFL know about these accounts but have no power to do anything about it and neither do the inland revenue. If teams use them they should be charged also under the'against the spirit of the game' but how does the RFL prove or disprove these accounts. There not written through the books and players are not forced to divulge this information.
I know full well Wigan are not innocent regarding paying players via loopholes and back handers. I was advised that they paid players through Orrells books even though they never played for them. I know Leeds once paid a previous players wife a salary for working in the club shop. I don't think she ever stepped foot in the place. It just one of many ways of paying salarys without doing it through the books. All teams do it, some get away with it others do not.

[Matthew]

Companies can't just make money "disappear" and I think that you will find that the inland revenue can prosecute companies that breach tax law. They may not be able to touch the money in offshore accounts - but they can make the company pay up to 7 years of back tax. With any tax investigation it is up to you to prove the IR wrong.

If they were able to do as you say then it would be incredibly simple for criminals to launder money. Companies (and therefore SL clubs) have to account where their money comes from and where it goes to.

If the RFL are aware as you say of the offshore payments then they have done very little publically to stop them - which may or may not be something to do with whether the clubs in question could afford to pay back the tax in one hit. The salary cap was originally brought in to stop teams going back bankrupt - so it would be very ironic if teams went bankrupt trying to get around it!

[Warrior4eva]

The account they us is called a Employee Benefit Trust.

Benefits: employee pays no tax and the employer doesn't include it in the salary cap.

Teams do use them and as mentioned is one of many ways of paying salary's and payments without running it through the salary cap.

[robjoenz]

Matthew posted:
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.

I openly critcise any clubs who agreed on a decision and then goes back on that to suit them. I have not criticised Saints much for breach of the cap because they accepted the ruling and have shown some respect for the governing body.

Wigan on the other hand knew exactly what they were doing. Part of the intention of the salary cap is to level the playing field. How can you not see that Wigan unlevelled the playing field by deferring payments to this season? This is not "in the spirit of the salary cap" as the subsequent rule is worded.

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

There will always be a way around a rule though, a way that someone will see to bend rules to suit themselves and disadvantage others. It is not like the RFL are taking the mickey making rules up to punish Wigan with no good reason like you are trying to justify. Wigan unlevelled the playing field and broke one reason the cap was put in place.

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.

How could they have taken the route of off-shore payments? The payments still count on the cap don't they? They just don't incur the same high rate UK taxes so the player gets more money but the clubs spends the same amount. Contracts were already in place so I don't see how they could have taken that route.

[robjoenz]

cpwigan posted:
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

So the winners of NL1 this season can theoretically spend £3m on wages because the cap is about £300k in NL1. That will mean that the club won't overspent over 2007 and 2008. Would that give a level playing field? Would they go bust?

Wigan may have disadvantaged themselves this season by having to make these deferred payments but would they have been able to do that if they were relegated? No.

If Castleford had decided to do what Wigan did last season and deferred payments to this season and still got relegated what kind of financial mess would they be in now? What they would have done would be against the spirit of the cap with regards to financial stability.

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.

It's not unthinkable, it's (currently) a part of the sport and no club is too big for the league, not even Wigan. Castleford lost all their good players.

Who uses offshore accounts? I've heard people talk about them a lot but never read anything about them in the media. Maybe I've missed something but I've heard of the Lock Ness monster but never seen proof of it's existence.

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.

It's not difficult to see how Wigan acted against the spirit of the salary cap. You seem to ignore my point that one of the caps aims is to level the playing field, Wigan went against that spirit. The RFL are not trying to con anyone, they just want a fair competitive competition.

Re: weakened teams - they now make clubs name their side earlier.
Re: using opposition grounds for cup games - what you on about?
Re: foul play - they give penalties.
Re: negative tactics - ditto.
Re: wrestling techniques - that's a part of tackling provided it doesn't impinge on foul play!

[robjoenz]

With regard to the Inland Revenue...

If a player who deferred payment last season retired (e.g. Brett Dallas or Jerry Seuseu, IF they deferred payments) they would most probably be paid under the 40% tax bracket this financial year. This amount would have counted in the 40% bracket last financial year.

Could Wigan be in any strife with the IR?

[cpwigan]

Rob we will never agree on this

The ex chief exec of Catalan went public in Australia about the use of offshore accounts. Have the Cats ever been punished? There is an article in this months Rugby League World about them.

I want improved standards of play. That has never come about by constraining clubs. We once had a level playing field, it was in the late 70's very early 80's. Everybody was garbage BUT we pretended otherwise. The RFL and the club officials said otherwise publicly. Thankfully, the 1982 Kangaroos came along and exposed British RFL as a bunch of fools who had no idea whatsoever. Raising standards come about by people pushing the bar higher and higher. That does not now happen we wallow in a mediocre league that is competitive by default.

I watch sport to be inspired. Whoever said domination is somehow wrong wants their head testing. We turn up in our thouands to watch the Australian RL Test Team, We watched Borg, we watch Fedderer, we watch Nadal, we watched Michael Johnson, we watched Brazil, we watched Steve Davis, we watch Phil Taylor.

If you want to talk about 'spirit of the game' then fine BUT lets get to the heart of that. What that means to me is every professional club / service area providing the highest standard of coaching education and opportunities to EVERY child within their catchment area. As it stand we know that does not happen. We know some professional clubs are parasites who sit on their behinds and feed like vultures off the work of others. We know and this has gone on for decades that amateur clubs and their volunteers who work for free never get rewarded properly for their efforts. If the game wants to be noble and honourable then it must start by A) any club signing a player from outside their own Service Area has to pay £20,000 to that Service Area. The professional club in that Service Area would pay £5000. Meaningful sums like that would at least allow those doing the hard graft to benefit by having more development officer, better resources etc. Do you honestly think the RFL community is fair? Read interviews re Castleford. That club for several years ignored their own Service Area. That is why they were in the mess they were in.

The cap or rich benefactors. Which will produce higher standards? I know and it aint the cap. We are the only sport that prevents people frtom investing in it. What a joke