Salary Cap Breaces or Doggie-bashing?

[imported_midas]

Does anyone know anything more about the alleged Salary Cap breaches by the Dogs?The Herald article seemed pretty specific and,if proven,could have serious consequences.I personally believe the cap should be at least 40% higher to enable well-managed clubs to maintain their position,but until it is,everyone should play the game.
One instance I found curious was that Parra could not afford to keep Andrew Ryan yet the Dogs could afford to buy him on top of their galaxy of ,I imagine,highly paid stars.

 

[Willow]

Apparently they have breached the cap by $1.5MIL over the last two years. The NRL have ordered an immediate investigation.

If you want an example of 'well managed clubs' being disadvantaged by the salary cap, you only have to look at Saints. It was bad enough when a large patch of older players (last year) and then a series of young promising juniors (this year) were invited to look elsewhere, but last week the club gave Lee Hookey the green light to go. IMO, Hookey is the best player at Saints this year and he is the club's leading try scorer.

Unfortunately, its all due to the salary cap and Saints are keen to play it by the book. In 2003, the team will look nothing like the team of 2001.

I agree that the cap isnt perfect and something has to be done. But while we have it, clubs are obliged to play by the rules.

Its not hard to feel contempt for any club that breaches the salary cap while others are taking the seemingly harder and honest road.

 

[imported_midas]

Willow
I can,t say I feel contempt for a club that breaches the cap,as one of the great injustices of the system is that it makes it impossible to retain a champion side.The raiders team of the late 80,s was knackered by the cap,similarly the Broncos,to a lesser extent Parramatta and now allegedly ,the Dogs.The cap was $4.5m when Rupertball emerged in 1995 and over 7 years has been reduced to $3.25m to enable the badly-managed clubs to compete.
I just don,t agree with this.People love champion teams.When Saints dominated for 12 years,the crowds got bigger every year,culminating in 78,000 packing the SCG in 1965.
Now,we will probably never see a dominant side again as once you have built it,you can,t keep it.
Howevever ,no matter how stupid a rule is,you either abide by it or change it and if you,re going to rort it then don,t get sprung.

 

[Cronulla_Mania]

Roy Masters i believe wrote the article, and he was very specific.

Unfortunately, its probably either 100% true or a mass stitch up job by someone who had a vendetta against the club. I guess the truth will only come out in time.

If so, its very dissapointing. Someone was talking about the Dogs being booted out of the comp for the rest of the year. Someone also mentioned them losing 1/3 of their points.

Personally, it would be a cruel blow. Canterbury hardly have a 'superstar littered' line up. I know where id be pointing my fingers if i were looking for clubs that have gone over the salary cap

Moffo.

 

[Willow]

I agree that something has to be done about it otherwise we'll just keep hearing stories of players being let go from some clubswhile other are clubs rorting the system.

I'm in favour of concessions for juniors or players who have been with the club for a specified period of time.
Working out how to instigate this is the key.

 

[Willow]

"while other are clubs rorting the system." should have read, "while other clubs are rorting the system."

 

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[Edwahu]

If these breaches are confirmed then they are easily the biggest that havebeen caught and the Dogs will have to have the book thrown at them. Those clubs who have towed the line will be lobbying pretty hard for something to be done.
Personally, I think that the best punishment would be for the Dogs to reduce their playing staff to 3.25 million and the released players be drafted to lower placed clubs. Canterbury should still have to pay their wages though. If they let the Dogs go into next season over the cap it will be a total crock.

 

[Dog]

how obvious is it that this is a total crock? I mean come on people here you have:

Masters - hates the Dogs
SMH - league bashing/union rooting
Bulldogs - running first
Brisbane - if the Dogs are over then Brisbane have doubled it.
Timing - this is pure crap, it would have been noticed at the beginning of the season if it was true. The NRL nor the Dogs knew nothing about it, and the Bulldogs are one of the most financially sound clubs in the NRL.

How this could be true is beyond me. Masters should be sacked.

Also, as most of you have said, if this turns out to be true, it will be unfortunate because of the stupid rules which are enforced which make it easy for the less-wealthy clubs to get better players. There is no regard for where players want to be. At least we don't have a draft though.

SMH - Shame Shame Shame

Dog

 

[imported_bronco]

You know I actually typed up a response about the broncos and the cap for you tim but deleted it as I've already wasted enough of my time arguing with you in the past and you never gain any more sense.

The Broncos are one of the teams being disadvantaged by the cap. Since 1999 most of the experienced players have moved onto retirement or other clubs and a group of talented youngsters have come through but now when they come to resign their demanding a hell of alot more and we can't keep them all under the cap. We had to lose Tuqiri, the Walker bros and Harrison because of it. We also nearly lost guys like Webb and Civoniceva because of the Tuqiri situation. Lets not forget we've lost youngsters like Mapp, Hodges and the latest one Tanielu in the last few years.

We're not the only team and I'm all in favour of increasing the cap so clubs can keep their juniors not at the expense of loyal experienced players.

 

[legend]

I have a lot of questions about this and the first one was the affordablility of the Dogs to be able to sign Andrew Ryan. With only two departing players(Smith and Rauhihi), the Dogs managed to upgrade the contracts of:

Braith Anasta
Jamie Feeney
Steven Price
Jonathon Thurston
Nigel Vagana
Willie Mason
Matt Utai
Hazem El Masri

All of the above bar Price got their claim to fame with the Dogs within the last two seasonsand would have required considerable upgrades to their contracts to keep them at the club, some easily in excess of 100k while clubs like Parramatta, St George and Brisbane to a lesser extent have been decimated by mass exoduses from each club due to salary cap restrictionsbut the Dogs have strenghtened for next season. It also throws the expulsion of Souths into question.

The last thing I would like to know is what would all those down trodden Dogs fans be saying if it was Parramatta or Brisbane who were in massive breach of the rules and the Dogs had lost say Braith Anasta, Jamie Feeney and Jonathon Thurston to rival clubs? Canberra suffered a similar fate ten years ago and we lost Glenn Lazarus, Nigel Gaffey, David Barnhill and Wayne Collins to other clubs and we paid the penalty. I think the signing of Ryan needs to be voided or at least put on hold until the investigation is complete.

 

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[Edwahu]

One thingmost dont know about the Canberra situation is that they never officially breached the cap, the players all took 15 percent pay cuts to avoid it happening. Also, they were 120k over a 1.5 million cap, which doesnt compare to the amounts we are talking about with the Dogs.

I am praying that this is a beat up because it will wreck the whole of this season if the Dogs are busted to the degree that it looks as though they might be.

 

[imported_bronco]

Does anybody here know the legal issues with players contracts? Can the NRL and Bulldogs actually legally downgrade these players contracts if the dogs are over the cap. In a hypothetical situation what say a club is well over the cap with all players signed for 3 years. Obviously the team can't be allowed to go for another three years over the cap, can the NRLlegally break the players contracts?

I think if the Doggies are found to be in breach of the cap a points deduction is the best punishment and I'd say its the best way to go for all teams found in breach. The Broncos issue earlier in the year died down and I don't know if they were fined in the end but they were found not guilty. A fine was going to be used there and really for a club like Brisbane or any of the other power clubs like Canterbury, a fine is justa drop in the ocean for them, its the points table where it really hurts.

 

[legend]

Good question Bronco and maybe our resident legal expert Bender, may be able to clarify that for us. My understanding is no the NRL cannot downgrade the contracts and players would have to be cut just like Canberra did to get them "legally" back under the cap. The bigges irregularity is that the other high profile clubs lost a lot of ground to a side who managed to side representative talent and stop players leaving the club. Shrewd management can only get you so farto the naked eye, the figures just don't add up. Masters has suggested another club is under investigation and if I had to point a finger, the Roosters would be my target. They should be investigated just as thoroughally because I have no idea how they keep Fittler, Wing, Morley, Ricketson, Finch, Cross and co under $3.5 million.

 

[imported_Raidpatch]

Does anybody here know the legal issues with players contracts? Can the NRL and Bulldogs actually legally downgrade these players contracts if the dogs are over the cap.
...can the NRLlegally break the players contracts?
Excellent question bronco. I'd be very surprised, infact shocked, if they could. Just doesn't seem within theethical guidelines to me.I'd like to see a valid answer though.
Raidpatch

 

[imported_Raidpatch]

These are the two links to the thread topic in question. Both an interesting read.
[url]http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/16/1029114015250.html[/url]
[url]http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/16/1029114013522.html[/url]
Raidpatch

 

[imported_bronco]

Thanks for those links Raidpatch . I was interested tohave a ofread this article by Masters.

 

[Dog]

They were found at the end of last year and the year beforeto be under the salary cap, and the article accuses them of doing it since 2000. Somebody shoot masters - he is a f**king moronic wanker who should be sacked.

Dog