Long, KC, Lyon and Scully were all very good indeed, the best going when they played together. Trouble is that if we are to have a top quality comp then the top teams have to have far more than four top class players.

Of the four three qualified for GB but KC hardly played Intls.

Whether it's current teams or those within the past number of years we have been short of quality players in numbers. That is the problem and you can't pay eight - ten quality players the salaries those four were on when they were at the top of their game. Not under the SC you can't.

Saints, Leeds, Wigan, Wire all need a massive number of GB qualifying players if we are to compete Internationally either at club or nation level.

We need bigger squads with the best youngsters we can find and bring them all through to play SL with a view to them all going to Intl level.

It can't be done with just £1.65m to spend.

There will always be players better than others. Some players will always be paid more than others, if all clubs had four top class players we'd have a lot closer a competition.



We could raise the cap to £4million tomorrow, all that would mean would be that average players would get paid more. It would not raise the standard of play whatsoever.

Whilst there is truth in that argument, our youth teams were regularly trounced by the Aus youth teams, now they compete and often win. Youth development [ihas[/i improved in RL over the last 5 or 6 years.

I'm not at all convinced by the suggestion that there is a clear link between the salary cap and restriction of youth development. There is nothing in the salary cap to prevent clubs investing in their youth setups (in fact, part of the original rationale behind it was to encourage clubs to spend less on mediocre Australians and more on youth development).



If it got to the point where clubs were having to let genuine top class British players go to rugby union because their salary cap was already choc full of top class British players then you'd have a point, but the reality is that none of our clubs are in this situation, and all of our clubs spend a considerable amount of their salary cap allowance on foreign players. This is something the RFL are trying to address with their adjustments to the quota system, and I think we're seeing some positive results from that already.



Removing the salary cap would IMO be disastrous for youth development, for the following reasons:

- Clubs would be more inclined to hold on to their fringe players, which would decrease first team opportunities for youngsters.

- Clubs would just chuck money at Australians.

- As Billinge Lump says, everybody's wage demands would go up, so you'd potentially end up with the same quality of player knocking about but taking more money from the clubs. Something has to give, and clubs would, I suspect, divert funds away from other areas of their organisation like marketing and youth development.

- The SC makes young players an integral part of every club's squad - they provide cheap alternatives to expensive fringe players. Remove the SC and you remove a significant incentive for clubs to invest in them.



The SC doesn't have an impact on how many kids play the game at the weekend, and that's what we need to work on improving if we're going to produce enough top class British players.

A couple very pertinent points worth commenting on there.



1) is simply not true. The cap is so low in comparison to most big clubs turnover as to have little bearing on their ability to successfully trade as businesses.



2) Is true and a direct result of the cap. It shouldn't have escaped any reasonable person's notice that we had many world class players in the game pre-cap and moreover, were able to attract the cream from Australia (something we are largely unable to do anymore) and Union (something we aren't able to do at all and, worse still, a trend that has now completely reversed). Given the game is still played in the same areas, with some good inroads into the South, Wales and France to boot, the only difference between then and now is the money available to spend on players.



I'm not saying the cap didn't have it's place, neccessarily. Just that it was, and is, badly implemented and kept in place in it's current form by self interest rather than in the interests of the greater good.

1) The cap expenditure is only a part of a club's turnover. If the cap is so low, where are clubs other expenditure that cause them to lose lose money every year?



2) Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. We had a handful of genuine world class players within the game, no more. As for the top Australians; short term deals when our season's didn't coincide was the reason for their appearance over here. Nothing else.

If the author of this thread is doing a piece on the SC - the first question you should address is this - is the salary cap legal under EU law- a case could be made by any player that it might constitute a restraint of trade .



theres plenty of pluses and minuses been debated on here but if someone did challenge i cant see how any sporting organisation can mount a robust enough defence- personally my view is that no one in any industry should be subject to such specific restrictitions - and lets face it theres no SC at Red Hall !!!!!

If we are asking has it improved the quality of rugby? Then no it has not at all!



How many painfully poor players do we see in super league now and how many overated imports?

I don't think it was ever intended to actually improve the rugby, just level out the playing field so we didn't have another 10 years of dominance from one club.



The cap is primarily to save the clubs. People on this thread have said thats wrong as clubs turnover a lot more than the cap limit. Yet they all lose money, so raising the cap would only further increase those losses.



The sport doesn't have enough money, it's as simple as that.

It hasn't brought Super League into profit but it has prevented many clubs from going t*ts up!

I believe it is legal because it is part of a "league arrangement / agreement" as opposed to the governing body having it as a rule; it is therefore an agreement between the clubs that participate in SL. The other thing to bear in mind is that there is no limit on what a club can play a player. In thoery a club could pay all its salary cap to one player and have the rest of the squad on no money.

So there is a limit.

As PK says it would never stand up in court of law.

Let me guess, you don't have a degree in logical thinking?



The club could pay a player £100M if it wanted to, but it would be subject to fines and points deduction etc from SL.

Its nothing at all to do with a players contract; so no limit on that contract.

Limit is club's not players limit.

Limit is SL's not RFL's.

Of course it would stand up in a court of law - why wouldn't it? The club pays the player what it can afford and what it thinks the player is worth. End of.

Nada to do with players contract.

there is no limit on what a player can earn though.



any club can pay any player upto £1.6m per annum, plus an unlimited amount extra through 3rd party agreements such as that used by Gillette/Saints for Scully.

why has no-one challenged it in a court of law then???

Only if that third party is not linked to the club.

good debate this but i would say that those who are putting the theory a club could pay a particular player any amount they want arent using a lot of reason - lets keep it in proportion



i cant believe a gentlemans/clubs agreement has full legal status in any jurisdiction if its against the general rule of restricting an individuals earning capacity- a governing body might say that its acting for the good of the sport but all member clubs are trading organisations in their own right , and they are not dependent for 100 per cent of their income from the governing body- so surely must be free to decide all aspects of their expenditure " without interference" from other parties



A salary cap decided by a third party even if its put that the clubs reps/ directors have voted for it , is surely an imposition on what an employee can negotiate directly with who pays them - in this case the club and must therefore constitute restriction of trade



i dont work under a salary cap and im sure that those contributors on here who are in full or even part time employment arent restricted either- so why should RL players be

well done.

how can a player prove they are missing out on higher earnings, unless he has an offer on the table from a club of more than £1.6m per annum, without any third party earnings included?



again, there is no theoretical limit on what any player can earn in the sport of rugby league.

I think the essence of it is that the players arnt restricted on what they can earn, the clubs have agreed to stick to a level, this is voluntary, so no laws are broken

Well summed up.

The SC for me is a good thing. Its undoubtedly stopped more clubs going bust since its inception, even if it hasn't stopped every such event.



Without analysing too deeply, I would be more of a fan of the (original?) SC which varied based on a clubs income, [size=85as long as it couldn't be manipulated using payments from associated companies etc.[/size



There simply isn't enough interest/money/infrastrucutres available for us to be letting clubs take silly risks, its not like football where there'll be another established club to step in a plug the gap.



I like the cap when used in conjunction with the tightening quota rules. I feel like we are seeing more British talent coming through, not just at Saints but accross the board. It might not be World Beating talent but its as good as Aussie journeymen.

I don't think anyone can argue the limt as it is is the 'right' thing for the sport long term. It's too low for a team to have 13 top players, let alone 17 like they have in the NRL. BUT at the moment there aren't enough quality players in the sport.



Raising the cap would be good, but the sport doesn't have the finances to do it.

Not a question of breaking any laws its observing them and

Article 81 of The EU treaty to which the UK and France are signatories would question the voluntary argument, there can be no artificial ceilings, limits , restrictions or Cartels on competition - In terms of restriction that was part of the case that Bosman won on back in 95 ,Not the same ruling directly as his was freedom of movement within the EU for sportsmen but his earning capacity which had been severely reduced was a principal point of his case .



The EU does recognise sports " specificity" within the community but Bosman won , Kolpak won and we all know UEFA would love to put a salary cap on but darent .

there is no way that a player could prove that his earnings have been severly reduced due to the salary cap, as there is no restriction on what a player can earn.



UEFA would love to have a salary cap in place - the only reason they dont is that the big clubs would just walk away and set up their own independent Euro Super League.