Saracens are relegated!

[Tiglon]

Barnet Council lending £22m to Saracens .... (I'm unsure what has already been lent and what is a committment)

"Saracens sought bank funding to construct the West Stand, but were unable to raise sufficient investment at an appropriate price. Consequently, Saracens approached the council as an alternative funder."

So Nigel Wray has loose change down the back of the sofa to pay millions extra in salaries but the banks won't give him a loan for an asset (new stand) .... says even more about the business at the club

Banks won't lend money to a business that is never going to make money.

[WhitecapTiger]

[Hinckley Bob]

Saracens will have one season in the Championship, during which time most of the players will negotiate new contracts on lower wages and Saracens will be within the salary cap. The players will also agree to a supplementary salary to be paid by Nigel Wray, who is no longer formally connected to the club. They will then be ready to return to their position as the top club in the Premiership. There has been no indication that Sarries have any remorse for their actions or that they intend to adhere to the spirit of the agreement, being top dogs is too important to them.

[WhitecapTiger]

Zzzzzzzzzz this discussion has become boring, let’s move on, Saracens have been found guilty, paid the price, accepted their guilt.
We need all the teams in the premiership to continue the great league we have, if we delve too deeply I think you will find that quite a lot of the clubs have sailed close to the wind with the salary cap including us.
To many posters on here think we are whiter than white, we are not, we have had warnings from the salary cap investigators about the way we pay players as have three other clubs.

Why don’t you just not click into this topic?

If people want to keep talking about cheating Saracens, then they can do. They’ll always be known as cheats and people are entitled to talk about it forever more.

Absolutely agree TigerBoy1880, but those with a different agenda will always attempt to steer the discussion away...bury the bad news so to speak. Clearly it was not Zzzzzzzzzzzz, more skeletons falling out of the closet, most definitely up for discussion.....Saracens have been found guilty, paid the price, accepted their guilt......methinks not to the 2nd & 3rd points, no contrition and now more 'guilt' to accept - at least by those who have been thrown into the firing line and, if I've read correctly, the acceptance of the latest punishment, automatic relegation, was taken as an alternative to avoid full disclosure of their antics..... not exactly the behaviour expected of a fine upstanding rugby club.

Dirty cheats. Get rid. And their supporters masquerading on this board too. (I would think/say and expect the same discussions about any club, including Tigers).

[newport tiger]

My only thought on this subject is: Who is the only English team to win Europe's elite trophy in recent years? The salary cap is nothing but a handicap on English clubs succeeding in European rugby, whilst France and Ireland continue to dominate without restrictions.
All the salary cap achieves is to bring every team down to the same level as the weakest team within the league(can you imagine the FA ever telling Man City they have the same salary cap as Bournemouth). We live in an age where rugby union is a professional sport and as such only the strongest survive, at Leicester we generate crowds of 20,000 we are often seen as an attractive fixture if clubs wish to switch their home game to Twickenham to generate more cash and yet we have to live within our means so to speak.
I accept that Sarries have stepped out of line but also ask the question: Is it the way forward?

[Jimmy Skitz]

Scrap the salary cap and bring in a strict FFP limit, tied to your turnover so if you make more money you can pay more money

[speedski]

My only thought on this subject is: Who is the only English team to win Europe's elite trophy in recent years? The salary cap is nothing but a handicap on English clubs succeeding in European rugby, whilst France and Ireland continue to dominate without restrictions.
All the salary cap achieves is to bring every team down to the same level as the weakest team within the league(can you imagine the FA ever telling Man City they have the same salary cap as Bournemouth). We live in an age where rugby union is a professional sport and as such only the strongest survive, at Leicester we generate crowds of 20,000 we are often seen as an attractive fixture if clubs wish to switch their home game to Twickenham to generate more cash and yet we have to live within our means so to speak.
I accept that Sarries have stepped out of line but also ask the question: Is it the way forward?

Ah but the French are about to have a ‘cap’...

[Dr H Flashman MBE]

On the relegation thing...14 games left for everyone and Sarries will be able to get a maximum of 70 points from those games. We are 11 ahead of them. So they are are not necessarily getting relegated. Maths is never my strong point but they could get out of this. Sorry if I have utterly misread the points deduction and punishment.

[OakhamTiger32]

On the relegation thing...14 games left for everyone and Sarries will be able to get a maximum of 70 points from those games. We are 11 ahead of them. So they are are not necessarily getting relegated. Maths is never my strong point but they could get out of this. Sorry if I have utterly misread the points deduction and punishment.

So if Sarries end up on -42 points after another 35 point deduction, they would be 53 points behind Tigers with 14 matches remaining; that is a maximum of 70 points available if they get a BP win every single match.

It also assumes that we pick up 0 points for the remainder of the season which is clearly unlikely.

If they do get a further 35 point deduction we need 18 more points to guarantee safety from 14 remaining games.

Hope that helps

[Tigerbeat]

On the relegation thing...14 games left for everyone and Sarries will be able to get a maximum of 70 points from those games. We are 11 ahead of them. So they are are not necessarily getting relegated. Maths is never my strong point but they could get out of this. Sorry if I have utterly misread the points deduction and punishment.

If they get a further 35 points deduction, this would take them to -42. Tigers are on 11 so a difference of 53 points.
18 points from the remaining games would be enough to avoid relegation.
Lets wait for the official confirmation of the punishment and continue to concentrate on winning our own games and climbing the table.

[Traveller]

My only thought on this subject is: Who is the only English team to win Europe's elite trophy in recent years? The salary cap is nothing but a handicap on English clubs succeeding in European rugby, whilst France and Ireland continue to dominate without restrictions.
All the salary cap achieves is to bring every team down to the same level as the weakest team within the league(can you imagine the FA ever telling Man City they have the same salary cap as Bournemouth). We live in an age where rugby union is a professional sport and as such only the strongest survive, at Leicester we generate crowds of 20,000 we are often seen as an attractive fixture if clubs wish to switch their home game to Twickenham to generate more cash and yet we have to live within our means so to speak.
I accept that Sarries have stepped out of line but also ask the question: Is it the way forward?

Ah but the French are about to have a ‘cap’...

If trying to find a balance between club and country is the treasure at the end of the rugby rainbow, it’s a hard ride to herald the French model as a successful when one looks at the dire performances of their national side relative to the talent available.

The reality is that there are a variety of options that could work, one of which is no limit on salaries. Survival of the fittest. Clubs would win, and others would go to the wall. It’s a legitimate model, and a logical extension If European glory is the aim might be to cut ties with the RFU as well. No agreed release of players during the club playing season. It is a madness for some clubs in a capped league to be losing lots of their best players, whilst others may lose none. Saracens won their first title by building a squad that avoided call ups (Tigers lost nine 6N players that same year). Stade Francais had more England players in the England squad than Saracens the English Champions.

The overarching problem is not the cap but the impact of it when clubs lose their most talented players to international call up. Exacerbated by the minimal reimbursement the clubs receive for a) losing their players b) sometimes developing the players through their academies and then losing them. That could easily be dealt with by changing the formula for reimbursement for England international call ups giving those clubs hardest hit, a increased cap allowance. The principle of doing so has already been established it is just the figure that needs to change.

The socialist salary caps work very well in the world’s greatest bastion of capitalism the USA, and has made the Dallas Cowboys the most valuable sporting franchise in the world. But their best players don’t get called up to play for the USA on the same day that they are playing in Miami. They also have a national draft of talent, rather than being locked in to a stupid regional academy catchment system, which benefits some clubs simply due to access to a greater number of potential players. There is nothing quite as socialist as American professional sport.

The one option that doesn’t really work is for a club to agree to a legally binding competition document, and then ignore it and cheat, and make excuses, and lie and obfuscate, and then promise not to repeat the lies and the cheating and then to cheat and lie and obfuscate again, and again, and again, and then to complain about the nature of the agreement they’ve signed, and continue to cheat even when they've received a points deduction and fine and not appealed.

[fleabane]

Good post, Traveller.

[CrumblingTerrace]

Take the cheating Sarries out of the league and you could make an argument that the salary cap is working pretty darn well in creating a competition that any team could win.

[Mark62]

My apologies if this is old news, but I heard mention last night that they were considering looking at joining the Guinness Pro14

[markharbtiger]

Following on from Traveller’s post, a good friend of mine (Saints supporter but we can’t all be perfect) and I have often agreed that American Football has some good practice: publishing player salaries for example (and also more officials on the pitch - but that is off topic here).