Wigan win back deducted two points as punishment for breaching cap adjusted

[Dave T]

8 minutes ago, tuutaisrambo said:

 

It's the second time they have broken the cap no matter by how little........if aything the punishment should have been worse than the first time simply based on that.

This is the third time Wigan have been punished for breaching the salary cap. I think it was one of the main reasons the RFL pushed for a deduction.

In 2006, Wigan were fined £50k and lost 2 points - they exceeded the cap by £80k.

In 2007, Wigan were docked 4 points for exceeding the cap by £222k.

[hunsletgreenandgold]

Sports fans are such predictable creatures. To the point it stifles any good debate on subjects like this. 

My opinion - the deduction should've stood. They didn't misinterpret anything and whether it was a genuine 'mistake' or a form of 'cheating' it shouldn't have been open to an appeal and we all move on with a lesson learnt. The appeal causes chaos for any future breach. 

I don't say this because 'Wigan boil my p*ss' or any other narrative that suggests it's because it's Wigan - it would be the same if it was Leeds, Saints etc. On both sides of the argument it now seems people will just discuss 'they only got points deducted in the first place because it's Wigan' and then the opposite 'they only got it overturned because it's Wigan'. All whataboutery nonsense to be honest. 

[Just Browny]

5 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Scrap the cap, put in place a points system that forces clubs to build sides in the way we want them to .

What does this mean?

[Davo5]

18 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Constructive and full of eloquence and debate. Great post, I hope the next one goes better for you. 

Oh the irony.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

1 minute ago, Davo5 said:

Oh the irony.

You’ve resorted to personal abuse, I’m not sure you have a leg to stand on, my dear. 

[Davo5]

3 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

You’ve resorted to personal abuse, I’m not sure you have a leg to stand on, my dear. 

As someone who resorts to frequently and childishly calling people rectums you might want to ask your teacher when afternoon classes start to explain irony.

[Rupert Prince]

1 hour ago, snapski said:

Some appeals do work.

Some appeals deserve to work. Especially if the accusations are misrepresented. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

Seems rational to take account of the severity of the breach and the St. Helens precedent in giving us our points back. Just a shame to have wasted so much energy at the start of the season for this. 

[Rupert Prince]

1 hour ago, The Future is League said:

I wonder if Huddersfield, the Hull clubs, Salford, Wakey etc would have had such a favorable result on appeal?

Why shouldn't they? How is it Saints had a bigger mistake on their cap, but only got a fine? There is a reason for having appeals procedures, and one of them is to rectify Star Chamber verdicts.

[Rupert Prince]

37 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Hope Wigan win this weekend. We don’t want an “administrative error” and a defeat otherwise they may go down this year. 

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. Heaven forbid Saints ever get a points deduction for breaking the Cap. Oh dear, they did... And they didn't.

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Seems rational to take account of the severity of the breach and the St. Helens precedent in giving us our points back. Just a shame to have wasted so much energy at the start of the season for this. 

I do think we should have published punishments. I noted in the recent RU case, they did have a matrix of what the punishment would be based on level of infringement. 

Of course there was an aggravating factor here in that it was the third breach on 14/15 years.

[Dave T]

10 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

Why shouldn't they? How is it Saints had a bigger mistake on their cap, but only got a fine? There is a reason for having appeals procedures, and one of them is to rectify Star Chamber verdicts.

The problem is that it is impossible to compare like for like.

Firstly, the circumstances of the actual breach were different. 

Secondly, the aggravating factor of this being Wigan's third breach makes it harder to justify no points deduction when their two previous cases have seen points docked.

This isn't me defending Saints by the way. I would never do that!

[Rupert Prince]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

The problem is that it is impossible to compare like for like.

Firstly, the circumstances of the actual breach were different. 

Secondly, the aggravating factor of this being Wigan's third breach makes it harder to justify no points deduction when their two previous cases have seen points docked.

This isn't me defending Saints by the way. I would never do that!

Ha ha.. of course not.

If the original circumstances were different (I assume you mean the differences between Saints and Wigans earlier breaches), well then this minor difference by Wigan is also different.  Wigans 2 earlier reaches were really 1 because I am imagining that the overspend were inevitable because of contractual obligations. 

I dont think Wigan or it's fans were complaining about those deductions, although some fans would have been left wondering how poor confused Saints got off with their technical mistakes.

 

[dkw]

4 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

Ha ha.. of course not.

If the original circumstances were different (I assume you mean the differences between Saints and Wigans earlier breaches), well then this minor difference by Wigan is also different.  Wigans 2 earlier reaches were really 1 because I am imagining that the overspend were inevitable because of contractual obligations. 

I dont think Wigan or it's fans were complaining about those deductions, although some fans would have been left wondering how poor confused Saints got off with their technical mistakes.

 

Would you please elaborate on that, because its sounds like absolute nonsense to me.

[Dave T]

3 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

Ha ha.. of course not.

If the original circumstances were different (I assume you mean the differences between Saints and Wigans earlier breaches), well then this minor difference by Wigan is also different.  Wigans 2 earlier reaches were really 1 because I am imagining that the overspend were inevitable because of contractual obligations. 

I dont think Wigan or it's fans were complaining about those deductions, although some fans would have been left wondering how poor confused Saints got off with their technical mistakes.

 

Yes, I agree, and part of my point is that all of the cases are different. From quick skim reading, Wigan's three breaches were all for quite different things, so it is hard to compare like for like. Punishments should really stop them being so careless though.

But the point about aggravating factors still stands - to be considered it doesn't have to be exactly the same offence, but another cap breach.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

Saints’ salary cap breach was because of bonuses and clauses in contracts for winning things and International call-up’s, IIRC. 

 

[Tonka]

This seems a right and proportionate punishment for the breach; a points deduction is too much in this case in my view. 

I am a Wigan fan and I agreed with Wigan’s two prior points deductions.  This one was too much, from everything I can gather about the circumstances.

I don’t know how anyone can suggest an independent panel of sports arbitrators could be biased towards Wigan although that seems to be the prevailing opinion on a lot of social media.  Maybe they don’t understand it isn’t part of the RFL. 

The whole point of one of these is that they are independent so that if the RFL makes a ruling - and a club appeals it - the RFL isn’t ruling on its own decision (for obvious reasons).

[Rupert Prince]

Saints' breaches were because of... blah blah, excuse, excuse and blah blah... this that and the other, oh so sad, "what-ah mistake-ah to make-ah"...

Move along there, nothing to see here... except ... massive fine, no points deducted.

[Nate90]

Staying up now surely?

[Dave T]

9 minutes ago, Tonka said:

This seems a right and proportionate punishment for the breach; a points deduction is too much in this case in my view. 

I am a Wigan fan and I agreed with Wigan’s two prior points deductions.  This one was too much, from everything I can gather about the circumstances.

I don’t know how anyone can suggest an independent panel of sports arbitrators could be biased towards Wigan although that seems to be the prevailing opinion on a lot of social media.  Maybe they don’t understand it isn’t part of the RFL. 

The whole point of one of these is that they are independent so that if the RFL makes a ruling - and a club appeals it - the RFL isn’t ruling on its own decision (for obvious reasons).

One thing I am slightly confused about is that they stated that the original tribunal was an independent tribunal as well as the appeal hearing.

[my missus]

Oh please god let wigan win the league by two points.

[my missus]

13 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

At the moment we value players in respect of the cap in terms of their salary (though not quite exactly because the SC auditor actually decides their value and value's it as a salary even if it isnt the one the player actually receives.

We then have complex and convoluted exemptions and deductions and this payment counts as A if B happens but if C happens the payment counts as D even though they payment itself stays the same.

Im saying remove money from the equation entirely and choose another way to value players. Ascribe them points and cap that number of points allowing players to be paid whatever. Those points would be publicly known so there could be no cheating.

For example.

You could value players that spent 3 years in your academy system as 1 point, players signed from the championship or lower league who make their SL debut as 2 points. Players you sign from other SL sides as 5 points, players signed from the NRL as 10 points as your basic structure.

Then you could add in deductions or multipliers for different things you want to encourage/discourage. For instance we would prefer to see more better quality players come from the NRL and fewer of the queensland cup/fringe players. So you could add say a 3 point deduction for tier 1 and tier 2 internationals signed from the NRL. So Vunivalu, Taumololo, Mitchell, Tuivasa-Scheck would only cost you 7 points, whereas a Mitch Garbutt would cost you the full 10.

You could look to use that to encourage clubs to take a punt on developing nations players but also to get players committed to developing nations. You could say that french or Irish/Welsh international players are free. or those representing developing nations like the US or Jamaica are actually -2 points. So you get -2points back by giving them a shot. You could work out a formula for discounting players that are available for the developing NH nations. So that Regan Grace for instance counts as 0 as a Welsh player but would count as 1point for saints if he changed allegiance to England. Or if a club went out and got James Tedesco he would count as 3 points as an Italian international but 7 points as an Australian.

You could also look to discourage things we didnt want to happen. For instance, we would want a player like Tom Johnstone to stay at Wakefield, so you could look to add a multiplier to signing Internationals from another SL club. So instead of Johnstone costing 5 points as a player signed from another SL club he costs 7points as an international.

Then you look at how you would like a squad (of top 25) to be made up of, say 12 academy products (12), 6 from other SL clubs(30), 2 from the championship/somewhere else (4), 3 quality overseas players(21) and a couple of other NRL players(20). Thats a reasonable squad make up so cap the points total at say 90 points.

Then the decisions arent based on money but on the push and pull of your squad make up.

Leeds for instance right now have 13 academy products which would be 13 points but Singleton is an Ireland international  and Golding Jamaican so the total would be 9 (Singleton would be free and Golding would deduct 2) Then we have 6 from other SL clubs so thats 30points and 6 NRL players, three of those are internationals so would be at the lower rate, so 21 points for those and 30 points for the other three. So Leeds would be bang on 90 (Which i honestly didnt plan for) So to get more quality in we could bring in some players from developing nations to deduct some points, or we could lose Parcell and Peteru (20points) and bring in two interntionals, an SL squad player and another academy product.

can't see your point.

[Rupert Prince]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

1 - Yep, and they have been found guilty and punished.

2 - I'm not so sure that is true. We see punishments handed out and appealed in sports all over the place. 

So, if it's Saint's responsibility to overspend... why do they only get  merely a massive fine and no points.  If it was a purely administrative error or an unfortunate misunderstanding as to why they assumed their bonuses were not under the Cap... then why were the RFL so lenient with them and not others.

And if the Saints' excuse was so plausible in the first place (and indeed I can see why), then why fine them at all?  The fine in fact shows that Saints were wrong, plain wrong. And it was a big fine.  But compared to a minor error by Wigan, the Saints error was at best no different.  But Saints got no points. 

[Dave T]

Just now, Rupert Prince said:

So, if it's Saint's responsibility to overspend... why do they only get  merely a massive fine and no points.  If it was a purely administrative error or an unfortunate misunderstanding as to why they assumed their bonuses were not under the Cap... then why were the RFL so lenient with them and not others.

And if the Saints' excuse was so plausible in the first place (and indeed I can see why), then why fine them at all?  The fine in fact shows that Saints were wrong, plain wrong. And it was a big fine.  But compared to a minor error by Wigan, the Saints error was at best no different.  But Saints got no points. 

Wigan were offered no points deduction and a large fine.

[Jinking Jimmy]

51 minutes ago, Oliver Clothesoff said:

Saints’ salary cap breach was because of bonuses and clauses in contracts for winning things and International call-up’s, IIRC. 

 

So it was still a salary cap breach.