That is mis-management and poor attendances, not the salary cap.

But that wasnt the question he asked was it. He asked if the Salary Cap had helped. Having an SC isnt neutral, it isnt the default position, it needs to have positive effects to be justified. It needs to be helping if it is to be kept.

This is just bizarre, you can't go claiming that the SC has levelled things down instead of up and then claim it hasn't helped the smaller clubs.



Of course it's helped the likes of Quins & Wakefield. It's helped them by keeping them more competitive than they otherwise would have been as evidenced by their league positions/playoff appearances over the years that wouldnt have happened without a salary cap.

Just as a few examples from my own club. The salary cap forced Leeds to release the likes of Ashley Gibson & Jodie Broughton to Salford who otherwise could probably have earned more being squad backup at Leeds and playing 10 or so first team games a year for Leeds. The cap forced Leeds to release them so Salford has benefitted from the cap. The cap also forced Leeds to send the likes of Luke Ambler, Kyle Amor & Ben Jones-Bishop out on loan, something which Quins & Wakefield benefitted from.



I'm receptive to the argument that the cap brings the top downwards and doesn't help us in the short term compete with Union or the NRL in terms of wages, but it most certainly does benefit the smaller clubs.

Doesn't that mean its actually gone up then if over 20% (in tax & NI) now isn't counted?

So you believe it self-evident that smaller clubs benefit from a decline in the standards of the league.



If there was no SC, leeds would still have released Broughton and Gibson because of the emergence of Hall and Watkins, they would have still loaned out Ambler, Amor and BJB because they wanted them to have first team games, thats why they werent recalled when we had injury problems.



The SC has left league where we cannot compete for the big names, we cant use the big names to attract those with nothing more than a passing interest and it has led to a decline in the quality of the league.



The SC did not stop Leeds taking Gareth Ellis, Hull taking Westerman, or Saints taking LMS.

Some counts, some doesnt (hence the tax issues we are having now). When the RFL changed it, it was portrayed by them, that the change kept the SC the same in real terms. My memory maybe incorrect and it may have just been NI which was removed from the cap.



Regardless, this would ignore the massive effect inflation would have had on the value of that £1.65m over more than a decade.

Mostly bollox.



Bradford's demise is directly attributable to not having a sugar daddy, or a wealthy owner when it mattered, and therefore not being able to compete financially with those clubs who do. Its as simple as that. Bradford used the Sky money far more astutely in the early days of SL, investing in the people and activities that built the platform for the early years success. In particular, they did NOT get into the nonsense of paying stupid salaries to players like certain other clubs did. But the club did NOT make ongoing profits. Without the Odsal settlement, the club would have hit financial retrenchment several years earlier.



It had fekk all to do with the salary cap "making it more even" and everything to do with other clubs using wealthy owners' money (along with helpful councils, unlike our bunch of useless useless donkeys) to pay for what Bradford had to fund from within the club. Other clubs have been able to seriously outspend Bradford OFF the park. Where the cap is irrelevant. Their good fortune, our misfortune. Life's a bitch, and its currently our turn to be on the wrong end of it.



My personal opinion (as those who have seem my posts on the subject before will know) is that the salary cap has the potential (I'll leave it at that) to be optional where you have a wealthy owner. There are too many ways to circumvent it if you are so-minded, and have the financial resources.



It is no different to Soccer and other sports (other than maybe in scale) - the future belongs to the clubs with the money, and its the wealthy owners who have made and will make the difference.

I think this would be a dream for the RFL, but only if 14 mega-rich investors, or even 6 mega rich investors wanted to come into the game. We have none.

Now then, a year or two ago Boots n all had a discussion about the salary cap. Phil Clarke had an interesting idea (his first?). I think he maybe got it from an American sport?



If a club wanted to go say £200k over the cap - they could only do it on a 1:5 ratio. They would have to put in £1m - they would keep £200k and the other £800k would be shared amongst the other 13 clubs. An expensive option for the club wishing to do it but the other clubs get benefit as well. And those clubs not quite at salary cap level would have an extra £60k to pay a player.

And we'll never know.

As I say, I'm pretty sure this comes from Basketball. Don't know about the ratio.

But is allowing clubs to buy titles they weren't good enough to achieve with a level playing field really progress for the sport?