Salary Cap working?

[yipyee]

With St helens rumoured to loose upto 7 first team players is this evidence that the salary cap is working or should the salary cap be raised to accomodate the top teams whom developed the players to a proffessional standard.

[Mr Frisky]

2 hours ago, yipyee said:

With St helens rumoured to loose upto 7 first team players is this evidence that the salary cap is working or should the salary cap be raised to accomodate the top teams whom developed the players to a proffessional standard.

As Saints are such a good team and have been for over 3 years now, its a real shame if next seasons team is of less quality than this season just because of the cap.

Time to let the big clubs spend what they want to bring more top draw players into SL.

[Adelaide Tiger]

2 hours ago, Mr Frisky said:

As Saints are such a good team and have been for over 3 years now, its a real shame if next seasons team is of less quality than this season just because of the cap.

Time to let the big clubs spend what they want to bring more top draw players into SL.

I agree.  The Cap should be an agreed percentage of turnover.  If that means that Saints, Leeds or Wigan spend £1 to 2million more than than some clubs then so be it.  That’s life.

[The Frying Scotsman]

Agreed - it should be a percentage of turnover. 

That way, clubs would be incentivised to grow. If a club can develop its business/fanbase/revenue model to a level where it can easily outspend the (meagre) salary cap and remain comfortably solvent, then it should not be held back by the fact that a Wakefield Trinity or whoever does not share their vision for the future. 

 

[ELBOWSEYE]

For a salary cap to work you need a higher percentage of quality players available so there is a position were the best clubs can't keep hold of them and they even up the talent across the league but all clubs need to spend the cap at what ever it is. To improve the overall standards our league needs to set a cap were it competes for players internationally. 

[Cheshire Setter]

Are any clubs in a position to spend more than the current cap? Even the four sugar daddy clubs will surely spend the next couple of years cautiously.    If you increase the cap at the moment it would have to be by a huge amount to allow clubs to compete for the best NRL talent.   Spending more on salaries of your current average SL player won’t change anything - we’d need to focus on improving our young players and making the game more attractive to them so they choose a career in RL over other sports.

[yipyee]

27 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

Are any clubs in a position to spend more than the current cap? Even the four sugar daddy clubs will surely spend the next couple of years cautiously.    If you increase the cap at the moment it would have to be by a huge amount to allow clubs to compete for the best NRL talent.   Spending more on salaries of your current average SL player won’t change anything - we’d need to focus on improving our young players and making the game more attractive to them so they choose a career in RL over other sports.

One could argue that saints do focus on improving young players but cant keep their team together because of the restrictions?

This isnt saints wanting to poach talent from the NRL its affording to keep hold of their current crop of players

[Hela Wigmen]

The players out of contract at Saints are Coote, Naiqama, Fages, Amor, LMS, Roby, Bentley, Batchelor, Eaves and Rizzelli. 

Coote is 31, he’s mentioned how much his wife and kids have struggled with the pandemic. Naiqama is 32 and has just become a father. Amor is 33 this month and LMS is 36. Roby is still running around at 35, too.  

Woolf has mentioned that we want to keep Fages, despite the interest elsewhere, though has intimated we’re quite tight on cap space. Bentley is one most Saints fans would like to keep, too. Of the rest Batchelor is 27 towards the back end of this year and hasn’t really done a great deal in his fleeting appearances, Eaves has always been third choice behind Roby and Aaron Smith and Rizzelli’s a victim of the situation in Rugby League, where, without a reserve grade, he’s barely featured for over a year. 

I don’t think it’s fair to say we’re at risk of losing all seven because of the salary cap. There’s almost certainly going to be reasons why some aren’t retained (age, homesickness, the available players on the market) but I get the feeling Woolf’s comments about Fages are more to do with Fages’ agent wanting Fages on a bigger contract and the club not being prepared to go over the top to keep him. 

[M j M]

The idea that clubs, almost all of whom don't make any money, aren't currently incentivised to maximise revenues is so dumb.

[The Blues Ox]

I think the salary cap has worked fantastically. I particularly like the way SL titles have been distrubuted so widly since its introduction.

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

The salary cap isn’t working, over the last 10 years the best players have been leaving Super League and quality World Class International signings have been few and far between.

The salary cap needs a major overhaul, we need more superstars in Super League. The marquee signing part of the salary cap has been a positive change but it needs to be expanded to at least 4 players per club and their salary cap value needs to be reduced to 100k per player. 

[Hela Wigmen]

38 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

I think the salary cap has worked fantastically. I particularly like the way SL titles have been distrubuted so widly since its introduction.

Yes, it has. Those with solid infrastructures, have largely won the titles. How dare we stamp our feet that Wakefield (other clubs are available in 20+ different locations), a club that play in a ground that would be deemed woeful in the sixth and seventh tiers of English football, a club that use a public park pitch to train on and a club that have to use school facilities, have been held back by the salary cap. 

[Cheshire Setter]

2 hours ago, yipyee said:

One could argue that saints do focus on improving young players but cant keep their team together because of the restrictions?

This isnt saints wanting to poach talent from the NRL its affording to keep hold of their current crop of players

I'm not against increasing the cap.   Maybe I should have made that more clear.   As a fan of the club with the biggest spending power I'd love to have all the best talent (for selfish reasons).

I'm just wondering whether it would make any difference to the current quality of the competition, or whether it would simply put clubs under more financial pressure after the biggest crisis the game has faced.   As stated by someone else maybe it should be based on a percentage of revenue, although this of course punishes smaller clubs.   I wanted the cap system to work, but I agree it hasn't really made a big difference to trophy distribution.

[yipyee]

9 minutes ago, Cheshire Setter said:

I'm not against increasing the cap.   Maybe I should have made that more clear.   As a fan of the club with the biggest spending power I'd love to have all the best talent (for selfish reasons).

I'm just wondering whether it would make any difference to the current quality of the competition, or whether it would simply put clubs under more financial pressure after the biggest crisis the game has faced.   As stated by someone else maybe it should be based on a percentage of revenue, although this of course punishes smaller clubs.   I wanted the cap system to work, but I agree it hasn't really made a big difference to trophy distribution.

Plenty of ex saints and wigan players floating about, the reason the cap doesnt work is that these clubs cherry pick the best and release the rest.

I would say that the overseas talent is fairly distributed which is where the cap is working and scores are a lot closer than they used to be with very few blow outs 50 and above

[PREPOSTEROUS]

Get rid of the cap, let the clubs who take advantage go bust and it will allow the other clubs to have a day in the sun. 

[Hela Wigmen]

6 minutes ago, PREPOSTEROUS said:

Get rid of the cap, let the clubs who take advantage go bust and it will allow the other clubs to have a day in the sun. 

That’s how clubs go bust, thinking they’ll get a day in the sun and that’s why we must have some form of barometer of spending. 

The top down approach also doesn’t work. It’s largely the clubs with the infrastructure in place who are most successful so maybe we should be further incentivising clubs who have an infrastructure in place (in the hope others will follow suit) via a salary cap by some form of relief for homegrown, club developed players. It also has a knock on effect of helping the England team. 

[Rupert Prince]

4 hours ago, Hela Wigmen said:

The players out of contract at Saints are Coote, Naiqama, Fages, Amor, LMS, Roby, Bentley, Batchelor, Eaves and Rizzelli. 

Coote is 31, he’s mentioned how much his wife and kids have struggled with the pandemic. Naiqama is 32 and has just become a father. Amor is 33 this month and LMS is 36. Roby is still running around at 35, too.  

Woolf has mentioned that we want to keep Fages, despite the interest elsewhere, though has intimated we’re quite tight on cap space. Bentley is one most Saints fans would like to keep, too. Of the rest Batchelor is 27 towards the back end of this year and hasn’t really done a great deal in his fleeting appearances, Eaves has always been third choice behind Roby and Aaron Smith and Rizzelli’s a victim of the situation in Rugby League, where, without a reserve grade, he’s barely featured for over a year. 

I don’t think it’s fair to say we’re at risk of losing all seven because of the salary cap. There’s almost certainly going to be reasons why some aren’t retained (age, homesickness, the available players on the market) but I get the feeling Woolf’s comments about Fages are more to do with Fages’ agent wanting Fages on a bigger contract and the club not being prepared to go over the top to keep him. 

Coote is feeling homesick...  we need a whole thread based on that.

[Damien]

I don't think the changes to the Saints squad are much different than what we have seen many times before. Most of the changes are just the normal churn that teams face.

[DavidM]

Has it ever worked in producing some sort of ‘levelling out’ ? Results would suggest not , I wouldn’t be averse to scrapping it as it is now 

[Hela Wigmen]

46 minutes ago, Rupert Prince said:

Coote is feeling homesick...  we need a whole thread based on that.

Do you know if there’s any Nando’s in Australia? It’ll effect his decision I’m sure. 

[Just Browny]

As ever, there's a middle ground. The cap should be keeping pace with inflation, and ideally rising in real terms so our sport is more attractive to young athletes.

However, if Saints are struggling to keep all of their top talent that it is a sign of the cap working as a leveller so teams don't have an automatic right to dominate for 10 years in a row. 

[Davo5]

26 minutes ago, DavidM said:

Has it ever worked in producing some sort of ‘levelling out’ ? Results would suggest not , I wouldn’t be averse to scrapping it as it is now 

It will never be a leveller when some clubs can’t/don’t spend the full cap.

[Chris22]

Quite a lot of clubs have a large number of players off contract this year. One theory is that club's were reluctant to extend contracts into 2022 due to unknowns regarding the TV contract.

We have to manage our salary cap and as a result some of our players who would earn average salaries at Saints may command bigger salaries at other clubs. Bentley, for one, is reported to be subject of a six-figure contract offer by Leeds whereas we can't offer that amount. Fages has apparently been offered £200K by Huddersfield. I certainly won't blame players for making as much money as they can in a short career.

It's a big year for us as it is likely to be our last chance to be the top team. Roby will leave or at least lessen in influence if he stays. Coote, Naiqama, Fages and Bentley are all likely to go. LMS and Amor are off contract, but even if retained will be a year old. Our recruitment will need to be spot on to keep at the top.

[DimmestStar]

10 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

The salary cap isn’t working, over the last 10 years the best players have been leaving Super League and quality World Class International signings have been few and far between.

The salary cap needs a major overhaul, we need more superstars in Super League. The marquee signing part of the salary cap has been a positive change but it needs to be expanded to at least 4 players per club and their salary cap value needs to be reduced to 100k per player. 

You need to complain to your own club about this.

Leeds Rhinos and Gary Hetherington are big supporters of the salary cap.

[Ant]

If you get rid of the salary cap, you're essentially saying you never want anyone but Leeds, Saints or Wigan to win anything again.

Its bad enough that we have automatic P&R to keep anyone not in the top 6 down, and with literally no chance to "grow" themselves.

How do you propose any club grows themselves when they are there just to make up the numbers, with no chance of winning the league?