New Salary Cap Breach?

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CrumblingTerrace
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by CrumblingTerrace »

I'm surprised at how the business side of the club managed this. There's a significant risk that the methods used to pay players is in that 'grey area' and turns out to be against the rules, meaning punishment. You might reasonably expect a business to remove that risk by checking the arrangement with the salary cap manager. To not do so is to leave the business totally exposed.
MurphysLaw
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by MurphysLaw »

[quote="Wayne Richardson Fan Club" post_id=813037 time=1647603304 user_id=4125]
I don't think many have suggested that our Chairman [b]must[/b] go, I said he should consider his position...very different. I am pretty sure in one of the LTTV Specials he said that the Buck Stops with him. Was the issue of these payments was flagged up at the time to him? Was it known they were in a "Grey" area cap wise (if so why didn't we speak to the Cap Manager at the time!)
I think a more "Personal" statement from either the Chairman or the Club would help, but I presume whatever settlement was made with our former CEO might make even this complicated, but not insurmountable. Is it fair or right that the most easily accessible employees of the club (Coaches/Players) get questioned on this matter by the media.
As an overall general view the present output from the club to the fans is minimal at best, Bondi was one of the better bits of recruitment it's a shame he isn't allowed out to "play" more often.
The Club owe a great deal of gratitude to our Chairman since the game went professional & I would far have someone like him in charge/owning the club, then some of the other owners in the league, but that doesn't make him above questioning.
Will the Smell of this episode blow away..yes, but the stain will remain.
[/quote]

Pretty much agree with all of this. While I think all of us are relieved this is over and the Club has not had a points deduction (or worse) a fine of £300k is still pretty serious to a loss-making concern. Moreover, it further taints both Rugby Union's, and the Club's reputations, and that is why the Club should come forward with more than the bald official statement. For a while, Peter Tom became a bit of a regular in front of the camera and this would seem to be a prime opportunity for him and Bondi to have another filmed chat.
Of course, while he is Chairman and runs the club from the top, he is not the principal shareholder. But we rarely, if ever, hear anything from Mr Scott.
ourla
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by ourla »

Wayne Richardson Fan Club wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 11:35 am I don't think many have suggested that our Chairman must go, I said he should consider his position...very different.
Surely considering his position = consider resigning? What other form would consider his position take?

Wayne Richardson Fan Club wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 11:35 amWill the Smell of this episode blow away..yes, but the stain will remain.
And the question would making further statements about it do good or harm. I should imagine most have made their mind up and take any further statements has justification for whatever view they hold.
mol2
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by mol2 »

Perhaps we assume the club knew about these payments at the time. Did they?
Ignorance may explain it but doesn’t excuse it hence the fine.

If any club was wishing to actively breach the salary cap what would be the benefit of such a small breach? It wouldn’t get you an Itoje or a Dan Carter.
Wayne Richardson Fan Club
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Wayne Richardson Fan Club »

ourla wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 4:19 pm
Wayne Richardson Fan Club wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 11:35 am I don't think many have suggested that our Chairman must go, I said he should consider his position...very different.
Surely considering his position = consider resigning? What other form would consider his position take?

Wayne Richardson Fan Club wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 11:35 amWill the Smell of this episode blow away..yes, but the stain will remain.
And the question would making further statements about it do good or harm. I should imagine most have made their mind up and take any further statements has justification for whatever view they hold.
Our Chairman might consider he made errors.
As for a statement, there are ways or phrasing it that show genuine contrition & apology, explain the events & if it was a certain former employees fault subtly pass the "Guards Parcel" on.
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RagingBull
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by RagingBull »

Tiglon
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Tiglon »

Some pretty damning comments in there for the club.
Though Saracens’ breaches in 2016-17 and 2018-19 saw them exceed the cap more significantly, some of the arrangements in that case fell less obviously within the Regulations.

Under the New Regulations, non-disclosure of documents may also be charged as a “Failure to Co-operate”, which is classed as a “Major Offence”..... Such charges are subject to proceedings before a disciplinary panel and may result in further financial penalties, points deductions, and the like, depending on the seriousness of the offending.
Basically saying that it was 100% clear that the payments we did not disclose should have been disclosed (there is no grey area here that the club can pretend it misinterpreted or misunderstood), and the fact that punishment has been fairly minor is more an indictment of the limitations of the old regulations rather than a judgement of the level of Tigers' fault.
Scott1
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Scott1 »

"Though Saracens’ breaches in 2016-17 and 2018-19 saw them exceed the cap more significantly, some of the arrangements in that case fell less obviously within the Regulations.'

Couldnt that possibly say that one person's genuine mistake was another person's more "creative " accounting?
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TigerXV
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by TigerXV »

Tiglon wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 1:46 pm
Some pretty damning comments in there for the club.
Though Saracens’ breaches in 2016-17 and 2018-19 saw them exceed the cap more significantly, some of the arrangements in that case fell less obviously within the Regulations.

Under the New Regulations, non-disclosure of documents may also be charged as a “Failure to Co-operate”, which is classed as a “Major Offence”..... Such charges are subject to proceedings before a disciplinary panel and may result in further financial penalties, points deductions, and the like, depending on the seriousness of the offending.
Basically saying that it was 100% clear that the payments we did not disclose should have been disclosed (there is no grey area here that the club can pretend it misinterpreted or misunderstood), and the fact that punishment has been fairly minor is more an indictment of the limitations of the old regulations rather than a judgement of the level of Tigers' fault.
Note the article is written by a trainee solicitor. The comment re Saracen's is subjective and also the penalties under new regs wouldn't not have been significantly different (in fact the lower end year fines would have been less).
mol2
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by mol2 »

I don't think there was any punishment for Tigers failing to cooperate?

How would Tigers (or any club) know what payments were made by a third party to one of their players if the player did not declare it? Either deliberately or by omission clubs may not be aware of personal arrangements between a player and a business who also sponsors the club. The sponsor may legitimately say that the arrangement is confidential and not disclose to the club without the players consent and vice versa.

Without doubt players and sponsors should be made aware that they should not enter into private arrangements without knowlege of the club. But if they do and neither party informs the club it might be a tricky situation.

Sarries was different as the deal was not unkown to the club as their chairman was, I believe, party to the arrangement.

I suspect there are many formerly grey areas that affect a number of players (and clubs) that are now considered as not so grey but haven't been identified. Obviously that would only affect clubs at or near the salary cap.

Disgruntled ex-player then tells the league or it somehow becomes known the to the league and the club could well face sanctions. Player quite safe as now retired or employed elswhere than the Premiership.
Tiglon
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Tiglon »

There was no charge of failing to cooperate because under the old regulations that can only happen if the club fails to cooperate with the investigation. Under the new rules failure to disclose (which Tigers were fined for) can also constitute failure to cooperate and consequently lead to a full disciplinary process and the possibility of much harsher punishment (points deductions etc).

The fact is, if the salary cap rules says that these payments need to be disclosed (which they do) then it is the club's responsibility to make sure it knows of any such payments. What kind of business is being run if sponsors are making secret payments to players?

If you know what the salary cap rules are, then you need to make sure sponsorship contracts are put together in a way that removes the possibility of conduct by the sponsor that causes the club to be in breach of the salary cap rules. You also need to make players contractually responsible for disclosing any third party income. All pretty simple stuff.

This is not about grey areas - the rules are explicitly clear, and Tigers have been judged under the rules at the time, not some new rules that have clarified any grey areas.

Regardless of your opinion on the subjective elements of all this, it's interesting to note that all of Tigers offences fell neatly into pre-set sanctions that are limited to small(ish) financial fines only and, under the rules at the time, there was no way there could ever be an actual disciplinary process. The cynic in me can't help thinking that Tigers (and all the other clubs) would have been well aware that they could fail to disclose payments and, as long as they cooperated with any investigation if caught out, would only ever get a small fine. As long as they were within the overrun amount then, again, the punishment was limited for that too. Basically, it's a very low risk cheat because the punishments were explicitly limited to levels that would not hurt a club as big as Tigers - if you can afford to go over the £6.4m cap, then you can probably afford to pay 5 figures in fines each season. That's why the rules have since changed and any club who now does the same as Tigers will not get off so lightly.
sk 88
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by sk 88 »

Tiglon wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 3:11 pm There was no charge of failing to cooperate because under the old regulations that can only happen if the club fails to cooperate with the investigation. Under the new rules failure to disclose (which Tigers were fined for) can also constitute failure to cooperate and consequently lead to a full disciplinary process and the possibility of much harsher punishment (points deductions etc).

The fact is, if the salary cap rules says that these payments need to be disclosed (which they do) then it is the club's responsibility to make sure it knows of any such payments. What kind of business is being run if sponsors are making secret payments to players?

If you know what the salary cap rules are, then you need to make sure sponsorship contracts are put together in a way that removes the possibility of conduct by the sponsor that causes the club to be in breach of the salary cap rules. You also need to make players contractually responsible for disclosing any third party income. All pretty simple stuff.

This is not about grey areas - the rules are explicitly clear, and Tigers have been judged under the rules at the time, not some new rules that have clarified any grey areas.

Regardless of your opinion on the subjective elements of all this, it's interesting to note that all of Tigers offences fell neatly into pre-set sanctions that are limited to small(ish) financial fines only and, under the rules at the time, there was no way there could ever be an actual disciplinary process. The cynic in me can't help thinking that Tigers (and all the other clubs) would have been well aware that they could fail to disclose payments and, as long as they cooperated with any investigation if caught out, would only ever get a small fine. As long as they were within the overrun amount then, again, the punishment was limited for that too. Basically, it's a very low risk cheat because the punishments were explicitly limited to levels that would not hurt a club as big as Tigers - if you can afford to go over the £6.4m cap, then you can probably afford to pay 5 figures in fines each season. That's why the rules have since changed and any club who now does the same as Tigers will not get off so lightly.
Which implies quite strongly to me that we may have actually owned up to the whole idea.

Consider the timing, salary caps are formally submitted in December in respect of the previous year. The leak about the investigation was 28th December.

Everyone agrees we were under the cap last year (2020/21) even with these payments declared/stopped from February 2021.

The old regulations applied until the end of the 2019/20 season. From the next season the rules were very explicit and switched from a system where everything was fine apart from the bits that were banned, to the new system of everything is banned except what is allowed.

We do not actually know the exact set up that was used, we know that no finding on Tigers culpability was made and we know that the amounts never even got to half way up Premiership Rugby's luxury tax system. Personally I don't consider using a luxury tax explicitly in the rules to allow you to pay a bit more than the headline figure as "cheating the system" any more than using academy credits or marquee players are. They're in the rules so you can use them.

I note we would be under the new lower over run limits in all seasons too.
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Tiglon
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Tiglon »

sk 88 wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 5:52 pm
Tiglon wrote: Mon Mar 21, 2022 3:11 pm There was no charge of failing to cooperate because under the old regulations that can only happen if the club fails to cooperate with the investigation. Under the new rules failure to disclose (which Tigers were fined for) can also constitute failure to cooperate and consequently lead to a full disciplinary process and the possibility of much harsher punishment (points deductions etc).

The fact is, if the salary cap rules says that these payments need to be disclosed (which they do) then it is the club's responsibility to make sure it knows of any such payments. What kind of business is being run if sponsors are making secret payments to players?

If you know what the salary cap rules are, then you need to make sure sponsorship contracts are put together in a way that removes the possibility of conduct by the sponsor that causes the club to be in breach of the salary cap rules. You also need to make players contractually responsible for disclosing any third party income. All pretty simple stuff.

This is not about grey areas - the rules are explicitly clear, and Tigers have been judged under the rules at the time, not some new rules that have clarified any grey areas.

Regardless of your opinion on the subjective elements of all this, it's interesting to note that all of Tigers offences fell neatly into pre-set sanctions that are limited to small(ish) financial fines only and, under the rules at the time, there was no way there could ever be an actual disciplinary process. The cynic in me can't help thinking that Tigers (and all the other clubs) would have been well aware that they could fail to disclose payments and, as long as they cooperated with any investigation if caught out, would only ever get a small fine. As long as they were within the overrun amount then, again, the punishment was limited for that too. Basically, it's a very low risk cheat because the punishments were explicitly limited to levels that would not hurt a club as big as Tigers - if you can afford to go over the £6.4m cap, then you can probably afford to pay 5 figures in fines each season. That's why the rules have since changed and any club who now does the same as Tigers will not get off so lightly.
Which implies quite strongly to me that we may have actually owned up to the whole idea.

Consider the timing, salary caps are formally submitted in December in respect of the previous year. The leak about the investigation was 28th December.

Everyone agrees we were under the cap last year (2020/21) even with these payments declared/stopped from February 2021.

The old regulations applied until the end of the 2019/20 season. From the next season the rules were very explicit and switched from a system where everything was fine apart from the bits that were banned, to the new system of everything is banned except what is allowed.

We do not actually know the exact set up that was used, we know that no finding on Tigers culpability was made and we know that the amounts never even got to half way up Premiership Rugby's luxury tax system. Personally I don't consider using a luxury tax explicitly in the rules to allow you to pay a bit more than the headline figure as "cheating the system" any more than using academy credits or marquee players are. They're in the rules so you can use them.

I note we would be under the new lower over run limits in all seasons too.
We absolutely may have owned up to what had been going on, which would be great. If that's the case I think it might be reassuring for the club to put out a statement to that effect - "it came to our attention that we had been in breach of the rules, so we informed the SCM". E.g. yes we did wrong but we turned ourselves in because we are committed to playing by the rules in future. That would be brilliant.

The overrun allowance is in the rules, but it is certainly not within the spirit of the rules to intentionally use it - that is not cheating the system, more gaming the system. It is, however, very much "cheating the system" to fail to disclose things that the rules say you categorically have to disclose. Whether you consider that to be "ok" or not is entirely a matter of your own opinion.

I doubt we will hear any more from the club about it - although maybe it will be in an autobiography or two in a few decades time.

I'll get over it.
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by dunks43 »

To put another take on , am I right in saying , if the salary cap say was 7million in one of those years, but then you can get credits by home grown players up to 50k each and also international players up to 80 k , so for 3 out of the 4 years that we have exceed the limit, an extra international would have meant we would have been under it. SO did we spend over the limit on the presumption we would produce x amount of international and x amount of acadamy players and it didnt happen
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Re: New Salary Cap Breach?

Post by Wellscity »

So
Sorries investigated
Tigers investigated.
Who next

My bet is The Pests and Brissle
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