Union Players

[Sutty]

The players wages are from a stagnant pool. We need fresh water in there, That means money has to be injected. Free the market. bin the cap.

There is a very, very easy way to increase players wages without scrapping the cap or requiring clubs to pay higher wages that they have not got.

The game needs to reform the rules to make what Bradford did a few years ago with Harris allowable.

They got him sponsored by a local company and they were basically paying his wages (or at least a large chunk of them) not the club. Unfortunately for Bradford this company also took an advert out either in the match day program or round the ground. That meant they were as far as the RFL concerned associated with the club and the salary cap rules say that any payments to the player from anyone deemed to be associated with the club count on the cap. So when this came to light and Harris wages were added to those already being paid by Bradford they went over the salary cap.

If they removed this restriction players could seek sponsors, look for product endorsement deals, sell their own image rights and so on to boost their income.

It would not cost the club a penny so there is no argument against it saying the clubs could not afford it. The salary cap would remain the same but a players salary cap value would be what he was paid by the club not what he earned in total from all sources of income.

This will never happen though as the smaller clubs would veto such a change despite the fact I reckon even players at Cas could boost there income in this way. Not as much as the stars of the game like Sam T but sooner or later the game has just to accept it can't carry on paying the players LESS each year which is exactly what they are doing with no increases in the salary cap and inflation at 5.2%

This is what a lot of RU clubs do already. I have just been on a training course with a season ticket holder for Bath RU, and he was saying that all first team players are sponsored by local companies. The higher profile players are endorsed by bigger, sometimes national, companies.

If the RFL had any sort of common sense they would see that this is a great idea. It doesn't cost the club anything, therefore helping prevent clubs going in to administration, and it gives the players something to aim for. In that, the better they get as players, the higher their profile becomes and therefore they get more money in endorsements. The way the RFL administrate our salary cap is so stone age it's unreal.

The sooner our game moves in to the 21st century the better and I fear that as long as the old fashioned, stubborn idiots are in charge at RFL HQ, then our game will continue to suffer from players being poached by RU.

[highland convert]

Surely if the RFL can sponser Thomas at Wigan without it being on the cap they are opening this door. Why cant Heinz sponser Sammy and take it off the cap. What is good for the goose is as they say????????

[DaveO]

Surely if the RFL can sponser Thomas at Wigan without it being on the cap they are opening this door. Why cant Heinz sponser Sammy and take it off the cap. What is good for the goose is as they say????????

Because it is against the current rules but instead of amending them as I suggested we have the rumour at the start of this thread that they will give a salary cap exemption to an (ex)RU player rather than let our existing players earn more!

Mind you I wonder if this rumoured exemption is in part to justify the Thomas signing? I mean regardless of who pays his wages they could say he wasn't counting on Wigan's salary cap because he is an ex-Ru player. Or would we be allowed Thomas and him not count on the cap and another ex-RU player also not counting on the cap?

[medlocke]

Surely if the RFL can sponser Thomas at Wigan without it being on the cap they are opening this door. Why cant Heinz sponser Sammy and take it off the cap. What is good for the goose is as they say????????

it would bge a shrewd move by the RFL to allow one player from each club to be sponsored by a big national,multi national company, would bring some extra publicity to the game if companys like Heinz, Raliegh, Triumph, Canon, Durex etc came into the game and got a mention on match days "at fullback Sam Tomkins sponsored by Dulux" or something along those lines

ps i know it has nothing to do with union

[RealistRL]

An interesting , if slightly extreme post.

Rugby league and union fan bases don't seem to overlap and exist as effectively mutually exclusive entitites. Suggesting that Wigan become a Union team would be a disaster from the off. The gate would implode and I'm not sure where the draw would come from apart from a historically irrelevelany rugby brand link.

Whatever Union does or doesn't do, it's irrelevant in a sense to what RL does. I can't shake the feeling that the superleague has stagnated somewhat in terms of both game quality and club development despite the franchise system. Adopting business model practises is fine, but all it lead to is a box ticking exercise without the real commitment to improve.

My feeling is we need to focus on quality player development and retainment without the need to raid Union. That means raising the salary cap - even if paying the salary cap remains an aspiration for perhaps half of the clubs.

It would have been an extreme view not so long ago, today I don't see any future for professional League outside a handful of clubs, at which point you have to wonder what value there is in winning.

We have to accept 99.9% of players our game produces with world class potential will leave, not at the end of their careers, before their peak. Sam will be leaving within the next 12 months and I'd be suprised if Charnley doesn't follow him out the door.

It's all ver well talking about national companies bringing investment but there isn't interest, the forthcoming Four Nations won't even be covered on a national level other than Sky TV.

We have a sport were powers that be at the RFL continue with the failed policies that have seen the sport go backwards, that wasn't a problem when the Union game was amateur or in the early throws of prosfessionalism. Today their sport is establishing itself behind soccer on a national level and can give players the opportunity to be more than a local star during a short career, they can make them multi-millinaire stars.

How can you seriously compete with that?

[josie andrews]

It would have been an extreme view not so long ago, today I don't see any future for professional League outside a handful of clubs, at which point you have to wonder what value there is in winning.

We have to accept 99.9% of players our game produces with world class potential will leave, not at the end of their careers, before their peak. Sam will be leaving within the next 12 months and I'd be suprised if Charnley doesn't follow him out the door.

It's all ver well talking about national companies bringing investment but there isn't interest, the forthcoming Four Nations won't even be covered on a national level other than Sky TV.

We have a sport were powers that be at the RFL continue with the failed policies that have seen the sport go backwards, that wasn't a problem when the Union game was amateur or in the early throws of prosfessionalism. Today their sport is establishing itself behind soccer on a national level and can give players the opportunity to be more than a local star during a short career, they can make them multi-millinaire stars.

How can you seriously compete with that?

Great post, & ideas similar to myself especially when it comes to the RFL !!

[highland convert]

CUMON NOO which player would want to be sponsered by Durex?????? Bad enough when Fielden sp.was the sponser for a perfume

[highland convert]

Stevo "Ryan Bailey looks a bit stiff" Phil C "Bailey, he is sponsered by durex"

[weststand-rich]

[quote="RealistRL
We have to accept 99.9% of players our game produces with world class potential will leave, not at the end of their careers, before their peak. Sam will be leaving within the next 12 months and I'd be suprised if Charnley doesn't follow him out the door.

It's all ver well talking about national companies bringing investment but there isn't interest, the forthcoming Four Nations won't even be covered on a national level other than Sky TV.

We have a sport were powers that be at the RFL continue with the failed policies that have seen the sport go backwards, that wasn't a problem when the Union game was amateur or in the early throws of prosfessionalism. Today their sport is establishing itself behind soccer on a national level and can give players the opportunity to be more than a local star during a short career, they can make them multi-millinaire stars.

How can you seriously compete with that?[/quote]

That is the question the RFL seriously have to address. At present their policy seems to be to put their fingers in their ears and go lah, lah, lah.

Put it this way, I love to watch rugby league. But if I had a son (I have daughters for my sins) with a modicum of athletic promise, there's no way I'd encourage him to play to play rugby league. The reasons would be this. The game is brutal and the prospect of recieving at least one unrestricted knee injury is very likely. The money you'd earn in a 10 year window is peanuts to perhaps even being a very average tennis pro or even club golf pro. The game is insular and lacks depth.

Address these issues and you go some way forward.

And as much as I love Wigan, I think it's only by players like Sam T making serious moves to Union, that the RFL might actually start thinking of making some changes with some real bite.

[weststand-rich]

WR in a twisted way RU clubs near me are telling kids to go to RL and learn the skills and switch at a later stage

Really? Where do you live TEW?

I'm not surprised - when I played union at school, we played tick league for a skills session.