What a mess

[h's dad]

[/color]

This is exactly Saracens position throughout when they were cheating season after season. Anyone pushing that argument has a serious deficiency with their moral compass.

Then pro sport should not ask for taxpayers money to pay players 20k a game whilst nurses and soldiers get 20k a year.

Sorry, I missed that. Got a link?

[BFG]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/54325825

[kk20gb30]

I believe that you cannot fail to admire what the Sarries team brings to the field of play - the culture and ethics are bound by more than money and finance.Yet we have to remember exactly how that squad and team were assembled , and the fact that not once but twice the club has been seen to disregard the rules appertaining to the Salary Cap.
Also , as has been noted previously on this thread , rather than submit their books to full and detailed examination they opted instead for relegation.In any other sport their 'achievements' would have been unceremoniously wiped from the records - they are fortunate that this was not the case.
Any 'mess' regarding and surrounding Saracens is of their own making.

[ads]

Direct quote from a BBC article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/54311989

Jamie George - ""A lot of people have talked rubbish about us for a long time. But if you look at the squad here probably our best player was [23-year-old academy graduate] Dom Morris.

"If you're telling me we're breaking the salary cap that's an interesting one."

Seems some of the players still don't think they did anything wrong!

Yes the prem is in a mess, but Saracens brought their relegation on themselves. No one should be bailing them out and no one should be getting the blame but them.
They NEED to be punished. Personally I think they should stay down there and suffer, until they can (legally) play their way back into the prem. Then they should be massively scrutinised for a long time.
If they do get brought into a 13 team ringfenced premiership, the salary cap rules will pretty much no longer exist, and it'll be a free for all.....

[h's dad]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/54325825

Thanks, but I don't see how that ties in to your statement in any way.

[BFG]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/54325825

Thanks, but I don't see how that ties in to your statement in any way.

Very well.

[trendylfj]

For me, there are many good posts here, but any suggestion that Sarries should not spend at least one season in the championship is unacceptable. If there is no championship for a season, tough! If a club goes to the wall because of Covid, then the 2nd club (Ealing) come into the premiership, if 2 go to the wall, then 3rd club comes in (Pirates) - anyone but Sarries. Believe me, I like Sarries, played against them for many years in the '70s, and had many happy times in their clubhouse, but any other outcome rewards off-field cheating and in our great game, that should never be allowed to happen.

[Noggs]

In my eyes it is simple:

Saracens achieved their success by cheating for at least two seasons
They denied and continue to deny they did anything wrong and have shown no remorse
They were asked to open their books to see if the cheating extended to earlier seasons but refused, instead accepting relegation
Their players had a choice of whether or not to remain with the demoted team and as such have to accept the consequences of their decisions.
The decision of whether to ring fence the Premiership is a separate matter as is the question of if ring fenced it should be increased to 13 or 14 members
If the answer is yes to ring fencing and increasing membership Saracens should not be given any 'right of passage' ahead of the top two teams of the existing Championship.

[ourla]

Statement released 19th January:

"The board of Saracens wishes to unreservedly apologise for the mistakes made in relation to the salary cap regulations,"

Nigel Wray statement 23rd January:

"I am really sorry for the heartache that I have caused you due to my ill-considered approach to matters relating to salary cap compliance. My intention with co-investments was always to support players beyond their playing careers.

I recognise that the actions of the Club were described by the panel as ‘reckless’ primarily due to my failure to consult with PRL’s salary cap manager prior to entering into any agreements and then disclosing the transactions to him. I take full responsibility for this. We should have been far better."


What Saracens and Wray contend and the Panel does I believe not refute is that it was negligent rather than deliberate. We could argue about that until the cows come home.


Furthermore, no one is disputing the punishment or saying it should be rescinded. All I was commenting on was that because of Covid what was already a mess (whether Sarries legitimately won their titles for example is still open to question, what happens to the players, etc) has now become an even bigger mess if the Championship can't run. Call it unlucky if you will. But the root cause is still that Sarries weren't dealt with sooner. And I don't have all the answers I just don't want to see Tigers or England, or indeed the good of the game screwed over because of it.

[Noggs]

My problem with their statement is that it is all about 'mistakes' and an 'ill-considered approach'. It isn't rocket science to know that if you are securing an enlarged squad of very good players by topping up their declared salaries with 'co-investments' you are breaking both the spirit and the letter of the salary cap. Wray is an intelligent man and he did it knowingly so no excuses

[Dangerous4]

I truly hope we see the back of the cheating Saracens. They deserve no sympathy for doing what they did. It was a disgraceful act, and as such they deserve to become an obscure clu, once more..

I will NEVER forgive them.

[JP14]

Not surprised by George’s comments, never really been a fan of the player anyway. His arrows and set-piece are good, but not good enough to warrant all the drooling and hype he got from the pundits.

Also for someone of his size, his ballcarrying in the tight is very poor.

[ourla]

I truly hope we see the back of the cheating Saracens. They deserve no sympathy for doing what they did. It was a disgraceful act, and as such they deserve to become an obscure clu, once more..

I will NEVER forgive them.

Glad to see you are keeping a perspective on things.

[johnthegriff]

Premier Rugby is not responsible for the Saracens fiasco anymore than it was for the Harlequins bloodgate scenario. There are rules to the competition and they were broken. Premier Rugby is responsible for allowing very rich men to take over our game, why else, having had the foresight to introduce a salary cap in an attempt to ensure clubs did not overspend and to maintain an even fair competition did they permit the wage inflationary " marquee player " system. Why when establishing that certain clubs were breaching the rules did they sweep the matter under the carpet, increase the salary cap beyond a level that was viable for most clubs in an attempt to lessen the need for guilty clubs to continue breaking the rules. It is not surprising that a super rich man thinking only of his own poorly supported club decided to use his wealth to gain success on the pitch and either ignored or failed to anticipate the repercussions of his actions on the rest of the Premiership.
If Saracen cease to exist or fall by the wayside so be it, over the years we have lost such clubs as Richmond, London Scottish, London Welsh, Orrell and West Hartlepool in the main through no fault of their own, losing one more will make little difference. I do not want to see " ringfencing " introduced, maybe now is the time for the RFU or Premiership/Championship Rugby officials to get off their backsides and get out there seeking investors, there are many English Football League Clubs who would I am sure welcome the extra income a ground share would bring, there must be a way in which a sustainable Championship could exist and to contain a club of Saracens renown would surely help gate receipts.
I have no fear for the individual players, they will I am sure have little difficulty in finding employment although they may need to reduce expectations and exist on salaries of only two or three hundred thousand per year instead of double or treble that amount.

[loretta]

What a lot of commentators and Sarries players comments fail to address is that, in their recent successful years, EVERYTHING they have done is tainted by their cheating. Stephen Jones said that they would have been just as good no matter how much they were paid, but he didn’t say that the only way they were all in one team was because they were cheating. Jamie George points out the quality of their academy, as have others. But it’s easy to recruit quality youngsters when you have their record, which in turn was achieved by cheating. People talk about their esprit de corps, yes they are very tight knit and loyal, but get a group together, pay them over the odds, encourage them to look down on other sides when they get away with it (remember the complaints about their attitude after games?), then win everything and that’s what you get. Achieved again by, you guessed it, cheating.

When I think about it in depth, anything good at Sarries is tarnished with their financial doping. It’s going to take a long time before that changes, and I’m not going to shed a tear if they go to the wall in the process.