Rugby league agent calls for scrapping of salary cap after hearing “Super League clubs are pulling back the power”

LEADING rugby league agent Craig Harrison, of Show Me The Money UK, has called for the scrapping of the Super League salary cap after hearing top flight clubs “are pulling back the power.”

The salary cap currently stands at £2.1 million but with a number of other benefits, including the fact that clubs are permitted up to three marquee players (up from two), but only if at least one of them is federation trained.

However, there have been many debates about extending the salary cap or even scrapping it with claims that it creates a ‘level playing field’ dismissed by the fact that only four clubs – Wigan Warriors, Leeds Rhinos, St Helens and Bradford Bulls – have ever won the Super League Grand Final.

Now agent Harrison believes that club benefactors should be able to put into their clubs as much money as they want amidst speculation that Super League sides are growing in power.

“The gap is massive between the top clubs and the bottom five clubs. Wigan could put 50 on a team that sits fifth in Super League,” Harrison said on The Full Eighty Minutes podcast.

“There is a massive gap. We believed in our system for all those years in a salary cap sport. It’s not worked.

“Scrap that cap as quick as we can do. As long as the money is from outside investment and they are not a d**khead who is spending money that they don’t have. It’s ridiculous.

“I’ve heard the Super League clubs are pulling back the power. What I’m hearing is they will take the power back because three or four of them are saying ‘if we are putting £2m or £3m a year then we want a say’.

“Benefactors are saying ‘put the money’ in and get the cap scrapped.”

Click here to get the digital edition of League Express

Click here to subscribe to the print edition of League Express

League Express is also widely available from local newsagents across the north of England.

Click here to listen to the League Express Podcast