Phil Clarke says it is time to scrap the salary cap, as he takes a closer look at the regulations that uphold it.
My article is a bit late this week, but not half as late as the decision regarding Salford and their breach of the salary cap. We finally know the result and the six-point deduction is confirmed for 2016.
I will start at the end: scrap the salary cap. I have saved you the trouble of reading the salary cap regulations which are the detailed rules that set out how clubs can pay their players. It is pretty heavy going and relates to the top 25 players at a club.
For UK-based teams, it allows for a maximum spend of £1.825m and €2.3m for the Catalans Dragons. Interestingly, from what I have read, the currency conversion is at the rate on December 1, the start of pre-season training.
I must say that up until this point, I always agreed with a salary cap in Super League. I still agree with it in principle; the purpose of it was to regulate the value of playing talent available at each club in the league.
It is also supposed to protect and promote the long-term health and viability of rugby league in this country. Modern-day management speak would say that it prevents money from being the determining factor for success. It sounds great on paper.
Its final purpose is to prevent clubs from overspending, which I now think is an outdated idea. I might be wrong but that sounds to me like something from the 1980s and 1990s. None of us really disagree with the principles behind it.
If you had landed on a spaceship from Mars and decided to set up a professional sporting league, you would probably have a salary cap system, but more importantly, you would make sure that you could monitor and enforce it properly.
The Salary Cap Regulations is a very detailed document and was last updated in 2007. I will not bore you with all of the intricacies, but it is fair to say it is not as simple as it sounds. Players are given a salary cap value which might not simply be, for example, the £50,000 salary that his contract states.
The salary cap value will also take into account accommodation costs, council tax, amenity bills, telephone, car, commission payments to agent etc. Even the marquee player dispensation has a different value depending on whether that special player at your club was club-trained or not.
It then gets further complicated because some players have a separate image rights contract and employee benefit trust payments which are another way of paying a player, but falls outside of his salary. For those of you who are wondering, it is not just payments to the player, but to his spouse, partner, relative or trustee of the player as well.
Further, it isn't just payments from the club. Any payments to the player, or people connected to him, from a business or person connected to the club which includes sponsors or commercial partners of the club are also included.
We often hear that we have a 'live' salary cap system in place but few of us understand what this means. The RFL holds all player registrations, and a player cannot play for a club unless he is registered with it. The RFL won't register a player until it has been approved by the head of salary cap and registrations. Clubs have to submit forms, reports and certificates on a regular basis to inform the RFL and keep it up to date.
In exceptional circumstances, clubs can go over the salary cap if this is approved by the head of salary cap and registrations. Special dispensation can be given to a club if they have suffered a serious number of injuries or if they wish to select a young player from outside of the top 25 squad and this would take them over the limit.
There are even rules set out if a club are found guilty of breaching the salary cap, and more importantly here, procedures in place for an appeal hearing. The clubs have agreed to "waive any other right of appeal or challenge" including to a court or judicial authority and have accepted that the chairman of the operational rules at the RFL will be the sole arbitrator. Well, that's what had been agreed.
It appears to me that we have already broken our own rules on the salary cap by going to Sport Resolutions in Manchester. Salford's breach took place in July 2014 - two years ago! If this is a live system that we are operating, I wouldn't want to see a dead one.
Salford claim to have evidence that proves they did not break the rules, but admitted on TV last week to not declaring some payments, which I thought was breaking the rules.
It is totally possible that there has been human error on both sides. I know that mistakes can happen in the RFL finance department just as they may have done at Salford.
As a neutral observer who hasn't seen the evidence, I would say it just looks embarrassing for the sport. We do not appear capable of monitoring the cap so I would vote to get rid of it - it is time to scrap the salary cap.
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