cpwigan wrote:Sadly standards would drop and salary inflation for the best British (Fed) talent would sky rocket. Simple supply and demand says that if you have a supply shortage (players) then the price for that product (players) increases. Increasing player supply would push player salaries down.
You should never introduce a cap when demand exceeds supply if you want to mantain / improve playing standards.
It's not just simple economics of supply and demand. There are rules such as the salary cap squad being limited to 25 highest paid that affect how the cash is spent.
With inflation as it is the cap needs to be raised or we simply see a real terms cut in wages.
No club has to spend to the cap limit and it would be foolish to do so if the money was not there so a return to the 50% of turnover plus an increased cap is the way to go.
Then, if a club could afford it then it could pay to retain the players it wanted to keep in the face of competition but if it could not afford it then it would be prevented from doing so anyway.
As it stands clubs who can't even afford to pay to the current cap still get in trouble (Wakefield) and those who can pay more have their hands tied.
cpwigan wrote:Sadly standards would drop and salary inflation for the best British (Fed) talent would sky rocket. Simple supply and demand says that if you have a supply shortage (players) then the price for that product (players) increases. Increasing player supply would push player salaries down.
You should never introduce a cap when demand exceeds supply if you want to mantain / improve playing standards.
It's not just simple economics of supply and demand. There are rules such as the salary cap squad being limited to 25 highest paid that affect how the cash is spent.
With inflation as it is the cap needs to be raised or we simply see a real terms cut in wages.
No club has to spend to the cap limit and it would be foolish to do so if the money was not there so a return to the 50% of turnover plus an increased cap is the way to go.
Then, if a club could afford it then it could pay to retain the players it wanted to keep in the face of competition but if it could not afford it then it would be prevented from doing so anyway.
As it stands clubs who can't even afford to pay to the current cap still get in trouble (Wakefield) and those who can pay more have their hands tied.
Agreed, plus there has to be more incentive for clubs to maximise their income. Wigan started to do it by bringing in a professional marketing team, and this showed results even in the Noble era, when the team was playing poorly, so it's not all about success.
I agree Dave but the supposed raison d'etre of the salary cap was to make RL or rather SL more competitive and the reasoning of the member clubs was to prevent some club spending more than another club whilst keeping all clubs solvent.
As you state those intentions do not even work now. You could even argue that the weak try to drag the strong down to their level and dumb down standards. I advocate dragging people upwards kicking and screaming if need be.
Financial solvency is a joke. Wakefield currently and others exemplify that. The great problem for me is that far too many clubs wanted to be part of the elite division when RL in Britain cannot sustain so many SL clubs. Crazily Ray french was saying expand SL.
Let clubs compete at a sensible level according to their ability to function. Make the Championship a league for clubs like Leigh, Wakefield, Barrow and so forth. Let the 8 or 9 clubs that can meet SL demands do so. I think there is an argument that the cap should be a minimum not a maximum and that if you cannot meet the minimum you do not merit a place in SL.
The Championship should not be seen as failure. It should be developed and improved. Widnes despite the rights/wrongs of why and their dislike of it have BENEFITTED from the Championship and not being in SL.
A smaller elite competition would enable a bigger representative calendar to be brought in. I would even advocate a new early season cup competition akin to the old Regal/JPS competition to give the small club their big day.
