Aboveusonlypie wrote:
In part yes I do. I am in favour of a salary cap. Actually I think most fair minded people are if they take the off the blinkers of supporting just one club.
However the Marquee Signing rule is really only tinkering with the cap, and as such I'm not against it. I have posted that earlier, maybe you missed it.
I understand your points, but the logical outcome of your position is that smaller clubs overreach themselves, cease to compete and ultimately go out of business. Rugby League can't be run on those principles in the same way that Professional Football can, because there just aren't enough clubs.
Do you want to see Wigan play Leeds, Saints and Wire on a round robin basis throughout the season? Or even worse do you want to see Wigan cast in the role of Glasgow Celtic with no competitors? (Or even worse than that Wigan as Glasgow Rangers?)
We already do. Despite the odd self inflicted disaster when it gets to the business end it is the same suspects competing for the trophies. The salary cap set at the level it is has done nothing to alter that.
Rugby League doesn't exist in isolation and yet has basically had a wage freeze for well over a decade.
That is incompatible with the concept of professional sport because as we have seen once a sport gets some money behind it as RL in OZ has and RU here, players wages take off leaving our players behind The players in the NRL and RU quite rightly expect a fair share of the pie.
Pro-cappers here rarely mention the players livelihoods. The seen to think because Cas and Wakey can't afford a cap bigger than what it is, it is OK for all the players at every club to have their wages held down. Why?
I think the salary cap
in the UK is self defeating myself. Here in the UK it is in effect a lowest common denominator. It is set too low so as to accommodate the poorest clubs and it means clubs who could afford to pay the players more can't so there is always a chance the best players will leave but the poorest clubs remain the poorest clubs and least likely to win a trophy. It serves no useful purpose and who knows how many young players don't even bother trying to make a career out of it given the wages for the average player are effectively low.
In Australia it is not a lowest common denominator at all. It is high enough so the players can earn high salaries yet it will prevent one club outspending another.
With the Sky deal all our clubs now have the full £1.8m salary cap paid. They got about £1.1m before IIRC so why not increase the cap to £2.5m? The clubs still have to find the same as they used to, £0.7m. If they can't do that they really have no place in a professional league.
HKR look a better prospect these days not because of the salary cap but because they have been given the money to pay right up to it and they are spending it IMO. Why other clubs still don't want things like the marquee player or the cap raised when they have also just been handed £1.8m on a plate I really don't know.
Sooner or later the cap will have to go up not just by minor tinkering by things like the marquee player rule. It can't stay as it is and RL protect itself never mind compete with the NRL and RU.
For it to go up we need more money in the sport or at least going to the top clubs. The Aussie clubs don't earn their income as such, most of it comes from the TV rights and they don't divide it between 26 clubs either. We should do the same. The SL clubs should share the TV money (cap goes up to £3.2m then I believe) and we should give up on the false idea we can have a 26 team pro league. We can't. We can't afford it.
