IT’S a bold statement, but IMG need to look at scrapping the Super League salary cap in the wake of the departures of Wigan Warriors star Kai Pearce-Paul and Huddersfield Giants starlet Will Pryce.
The Super League pair will link up with the Newcastle Knights ahead of the 2024 NRL season after penning two-year deals with the Hunter club, with both Wigan and Huddersfield understandably upset over losing such talent.
In this day and age, and with the spending power of NRL clubs, Super League sides just cannot compete.
As Super League’s salary cap stands at £2.1 million, that of the NRL comes to a figure of just over £5 million, meaning Australian sides have over twice the spending power of British and French clubs in the northern hemisphere’s elite league.
In theory, the salary cap should work – it was brought in with the creation of the summer game back in 1996 in order to create a more even playing field.
That being said, only four teams have ever won the Super League Grand Final and one of those – the Bradford Bulls – have been out of the top flight for almost a decade!
Whilst the inclusion of new rules such as marquee players has enabled those with greater spending power to bring over the likes of Blake Austin and Gareth Widdop, it just hasn’t been enough to stop a steady trickle of Super League’s biggest stars Down Under.
The likes of George Williams, John Bateman, Elliott Whitehead and Dom Young have all made their way to the NRL and whilst Williams and Bateman have both returned to England, an NRL club would almost certainly blow any rival UK offers out of the water.
How to solve this issue? Scrap the salary cap – or at least raise it to NRL levels.
Teams should be able to spend what they want – if an owner has the money, let them bring in the world’s best players to our competition instead of the other way around.
That was former Salford Red Devils owner Marwan Koukash’s argument, and, whilst the Palestine-born racehorse owner has since left the sport, it would certainly be able to lure in bigger investors.
Not only would a more lucrative Super League improve the competition’s quality, it would also enhance England’s capability of challenging the likes of Australia and New Zealand on an international stage.
There are, of course, those critics that would point to the elevated cap in rugby union and the damage that has since been created in recent weeks and months with reducing the cap from £7 million to just £5 million following the Covid-19 pandemic, but there would likely be a ceiling spend.
There would also need to be rigorous tests done to ensure those clubs that could spend a lot more than £2 million could do so without any financial consequences.
That being said, a salary cap of just over £2 million is not enough to keep – or attract – the world’s best players in the prime of their careers, and IMG will surely do something about it.
