Salary Cap Mystery???

[frank]

:conf:
Wigan have approximately 8 players going at the end of this season:- Pongia/Smith/Hodgson/Robinson?lam/O'Connor/Connolly/Caddisy.

And are bringing in three overseas players two of which are over 30 years of age, also two youngsters from the A team.

What I dont understand is WHY are we still close to the salary cap? These players cannot be costing more than those going in salaries. OK if a surprise signing is coming along Long/Burrows/Peters etc then fair enough, otherwise it just doesnt make sense to me. What do other people think.

[MrsLam]

Thats what a lot of us on here have been wondering.
I still think we're saving up for a big buy sometime in the near future, but it's impossible to say with Uncle Mo. Right now I don't care, as long as he doesn't let anymore talented youngsters go.

[Mike]

Another suggestion is that we are suffering from several players who are on very large deals. However, Faz and Radlinski are the only two that were payed to remain with Super League that I can remember. Robinson was another one and Betts was on a huge deal, but they have long gone. Lam must have been on a large deal as well.

I can't understand how we are the only team that are releasing players (about 6 or 7 so far) due to the salary cap. Leeds, Bradford, Hull and even Salford and Widnes are able to retain their good younsters and still recruit from us, yet we are forced to off-load players with clear potential.

I just hope we do sign a decent scrum-half for next year, otherwise serious questions will start to be asked about the boards running of the club.

[the grinch]

season ticket sales go up every year. attendances are way up this year. sky are giving the clubs more money than ever. aren't we also supposed to have our very own sugar daddy in whealan? im not into conspiracy theories but its pretty compeling stuff! where is all this money going? why can't we afford to keep the players we develope? why is the salary cap such a problem to us and no one else? :doz:

[Fraggle]

the grinch posted:
season ticket sales go up every year. attendances are way up this year. sky are giving the clubs more money than ever. aren't we also supposed to have our very own sugar daddy in whealan? im not into conspiracy theories but its pretty compeling stuff! where is all this money going? why can't we afford to keep the players we develope? why is the salary cap such a problem to us and no one else? :doz:

Because we probably pay better than the other clubs. Remember the quote from Vaealiki's club, that he goes with their blessings as he'll be set-up financially for life? TBH I don't think season ticket sales going up, even prices going up makes a difference to the money available to us. I don't think there is any problem with us being able to raise our £1.8m limit on salaries, that's small change in Whelan's pocket compared to what he gives to the Latics. We might bring in £5m in income, but can only spend £1.8m in salaries, and I'm not even sure if that's linked to inflation (should be up to £1.9m for next year given two years of 3% increases for inflation).

How many 20's are in the 20/20 rule this year? I think that last addition to that rule which linked in the number of first team games is the difficult one for us at the moment, and would also affect Hull if they were able to keep players for more than a year. Our injuries for the last 3 seasons have meant we've brought in huge numbers of young players and included them in lots of matches. Even subs' appearances are counting against their number of appearances under the salary cap. If Brown plays 20 games he's entitled to a bigger salary, so either he goes or someone else on the bigger salary also has to go. We know getting new props is difficult, so the likes of Hargreaves gets signed up but once he reaches the games limit then again a decision has to be made - do we keep him and sacrifice someone else. Dodgy and Robinson have been released probably to allow some more promising kids to come through, although I admit the Robinson situation is more bizarre unless we've got a more established name coming to the club. It would be nice to think we can keep all the players we develop at Wigan, but almost a whole team of under 21's has featured in the first team at some point in the last year or two and it's just not possible to accommodate all of them as well as the established first teamers.

I think it also protects the players' interests as well to some extent: Dave Allen is a good example of a player I can't see staying at Wigan too much longer, he has been on the fringes of the 1st team for a while now but with so many other back-row forwards in the team he's not likely to get a slot for quite a long time. Why not release him and let him play first-team and enjoy a career somewhere else? These guys can't play U21's for ever, and they don't benefit anyone by staying on the books at Wigan until they're 25 but not regularly featuring in the first team squad.

[ian.birchall]

Fraggle, I liked that analysis of the problems facing Wigan. The point you made about Dave Allen is a good one, makes the keeping of Mick Cassidy even stranger. I suppose that it is just like any other employment, some faces fit and some don't. I think you should email it to Red Hall as well. Excellent summary. :exc:

[GeoffN]

Has Cassidy re-signed? I missed that one.
I take your point about letting players go to allow good youngsters to come through, but it's often these good youngsters we're letting go. Betts talked about "creating a pathway for young players", but a pathway to Hull or Salford?

[Fraggle]

GeoffN posted:
Has Cassidy re-signed? I missed that one.
I take your point about letting players go to allow good youngsters to come through, but it's often these good youngsters we're letting go. Betts talked about "creating a pathway for young players", but a pathway to Hull or Salford?

My point is that we have too many good youngsters which we've had to bring through quickly due to injuries to recognised first-teamers, more youngsters than we're able to keep hold of under the current salary cap regulations. Unless we ditch Faz, Rads and all the other established players, we have no choice but to let some of the youngsters go once they've reached a certain number of games because otherwise we need to offer them a proper contract but it's one-in, one-out - who is the one who has to go? It's not right to penalise clubs who put in time and investment to develop the players of the future, but we don't make the rules.

[skorpion]

Anyone see briscoe on bootsnall last night. I got the impression that the salary cap wasn't the real issue as to why he left. One has to ask is the cap being used as an excuse to hide the real reasons for players being given away to other clubs. The rest of the clubs seem to be buying whilst we are selling. :craz:

[ian.birchall]

GeoffN, don't think so but I thought that one reason Briscoe and not Cassidy went at the start of the season was the fact that Mick had 2 years left on his contract.