Obviously our team has salary cap issues. However, let’s not carried away with the NEWS LTD beat up and then other competitors jumping in as they need to write it up to keep their customer base. Let alone the bastards leaking bullshit all the time.

The breakdown of the salary cap breaches in 2014 were:

  • NRL Top 25              $101,718
  • NRL 2nd tier             $233,036
  • NYC Top 20              $  60,915
  • NYC 2nd tier            $    8,277

Does look like a systemic abuse of the salary cap.

2014 NRL Top 25 salary cap was $6.3M. You can look at that percentage wise and it’s a miniscule 1.6%

2014 NRL 2nd tier salary cap was $440,000. You can look at this percentage wise and it’s a hefty 53%.

2014 NYC Top 20 salary was $250,000. 24% overspend.

2014 NYC 2nd tier was $50,000. 17% overspend.

Having look at these figures and some of the reason for salary cap breaches were due to injured players in first grade and them having to top up payments for players not in the top 25 that played first grade.

So let’s put these breaches into perspective.

 

Canterbury season 2002[edit] $2.13 million over 3 years

Main article: Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs salary cap breach

In 2002, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs were fined the maximum of $500,000 and deducted all 37 premiership points received during the season after it was found that they had committed serious and systematic breaches of the salary cap totaling $2.13 million over the past three years, including $750,000 in 2001 and $920,000 in 2002; these were described by NRL Chief Executive David Gallop as "exceptional in both its size and its deliberate and ongoing nature". The points penalty meant that the club won the 2002wooden spoon (South Sydney would have finished last if not for the breaches), and as the club had been leading the competition table prior to the imposition of the penalties, this was a shattering outcome for the club and its fans. Two senior club officials were jailed for fraud as a result of these breaches.

 

New Zealand Warriors season 2005[edit] $1.1 million over 2 years

In 2005, the New Zealand Warriors were fined $430,000 and were ordered to start the 2006 season with a four premiership point deficit and cut their payroll by $450,000 after club officials revealed that their former management had exceeded the salary cap by $1.1 million over the last two years. The points penalty meant that the Warriors missed a finals berth in 2006.

 

Melbourne season 2010[edit]  $3.78 million over 5 years 

Main article: Melbourne Storm salary cap breach

The Melbourne Storm salary cap breach was a major breach over a period of five years. The discovery of these breaches in 2010 resulted in it stripping the Storm of all honours achieved as a team since 2006 (including the 2007 and 2009 premierships, the 2006, 2007 and 2009 minor premierships and the 2010 World Club Challenge), sentencing them to finish the 2010 NRL season last (of which 75% was still to be played) and fining the club a record $1.689 million.

The other point to make is that the salary cap was sustainably lower in the periods these teams breached the salary cap.

These acts by these clubs were systematic breaches of the caps. They deliberately went out their way to rort this system.

So again, let’s keep things in perspective.

I could spend a lot more time in research and give you stats on what the breaches meant percentage wise for each year, however, I am lazy these days.

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  • Actually a very good blog vince even though cap overspending is not the real issue here, it would be a good argument if they had found out we had just overspent a bit more but thats not the case at all.

  • Oh OK then, just a little bit of cheating is fine as long as you don't OVER cheat

    last time I checked, it's STILL cheating - intentional or not, it's STILL cheating - incompetent board or not , it's STILL cheating

    How's that for perspective !!!

    • Pretty sure about 6 clubs each year get fined a bit for salary cap breaches.
  • Simple solution.  It is not rocket science.  Increase the cap to a reasonable and realistic level and get rid of third party deals, sponsorships etc.  How hard can it be?

  • So if a player like Hayne wants to partner with a company like Asics, what does he do? Do you restrict his income by saying he is not allowed anything apart from his NRL money?
  • At the moment they are just allegations. Over the last few years every non roosters fans in Australia has made allegations that niks roosters are rorting the cap, but they seemed to dodge any "intense investigation"
    Maybe they can strip us of our wooden spoons!
  • You can not tell me Manly are not cheating the salary cap
  • The only time the NRL has uncovered this stuff is if somebody within the club or formerly within the club leaks internal documents. Ergo
    • Therefore it would be reasonable to assume breaches such as ours happen at many clubs......its just the NRL never find out about it.
  • They found out about the Titans Princegate affair (they self reported) which was out and out deceit and threatened -4. Not quite sure what The Titans did to avoid the deduction though.
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