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Quote:EXDJ
Williams is currently earning £600k (ie double what seems to be the accepted figure) then he is taking a whopping pay-cut to go back to Wales on £400k.
Quote:Duncan96
Ok both I’m happy to stand corrected. It looks like the effect of the salary cap breach is 2 players..
Quote:Marlow Nick
... If one assumes....
Quote:Marlow Nick
I find it fascinating how a handful of Saracens` supporters are still in denial.
Quote:Roger GQuote:Marlow Nick
I find it fascinating how a handful of Saracens` supporters are still in denial.
Nick, I wish you a very happy New Year. I also hope you make a resolution to read what is posted, take it at face value, and not try to put your own spin on everything. I am not in denial, neither do I know whether the assumptions I posted are any closer to the truth than yours. I said in my post that I was severely peed off with the management....if only you'd read that bit. The only thing I deny is that anybody, outside of the very few club directors who have had access to the full report, can have the slightest clue about the details of the offence, and what difference it might have made to our squad.
Quote:Marlow NickQuote:Duncan96
Ok both I’m happy to stand corrected. It looks like the effect of the salary cap breach is 2 players..
Duncan,
That's not how most of us are doing the maths. I don't believe Saracens have an unusually large squad £600k wis unlikely to have paid for one or two extra players but rather upgrading quality within fixed squad quantity. If one assumes an international costs £100k per player more than a premiership player then £600k buys you much more strength in depth which is what we see in Saracens squad.
Quote:TonyTaff
Also, speculation that the business partnerships were the cause of the breach, is just that 'speculation'.[/quote
I don’t think it’s speculation Tony. The in season audits prior to the recent inquiry of how much was paid to players by the club found no breach of the salary cap. It was the inquiry into business loans made by NW following the Daily Mail articles which concluded there was a breach of about £600k pa. Cleverer people than me worked this amount out from the size of the fine and managed to reconcile It with the loans as openly disclosed in the accounts of E.g. Wiggy Ltd at companies house
Quote:Marlow NickQuote:Duncan96
Ok both I’m happy to stand corrected. It looks like the effect of the salary cap breach is 2 players..
Duncan,
That's not how most of us are doing the maths. I don't believe Saracens have an unusually large squad £600k wis unlikely to have paid for one or two extra players but rather upgrading quality within fixed squad quantity. If one assumes an international costs £100k per player more than a premiership player then £600k buys you much more strength in depth which is what we see in Saracens squad.
Quote:Duncan96
Surely the only practical solution would rather have been that, as the superstar contracts came up for renewal which prompted the business loans, either certain players would have had to accept their new salary without the addition of the investment companies and/or we would have had to buy in fewer players?
Quote:myleftboot
But Duncan, all that is still speculaton
Quote:EXDJQuote:Duncan96
Surely the only practical solution would rather have been that, as the superstar contracts came up for renewal which prompted the business loans, either certain players would have had to accept their new salary without the addition of the investment companies and/or we would have had to buy in fewer players?
And/or decide that, because the club wants to both retain the superstar players and also buy in one or more players (eg to fill identified gaps), it has to let some promising youngsters go elsewhere when they come off their cheap academy contracts, because it doesn’t have the headroom in the cap to keep them?
ie all the messy compromises that come with trying to assemble and maintain a squad within the constraints of the salary cap rules.
Quote:Duncan96
I guess this seasons mid season audit by the salary cap people will be helpful as an indication as to whether we were over the cap without the business loans
Quote:Duncan96
I think overall we would have kept the majority of the up and coming players though because that is the core of what Saracens player development has been about.
Quote:EXDJQuote:Duncan96
I think overall we would have kept the majority of the up and coming players though because that is the core of what Saracens player development has been about.
Yep completely agree that I’d expect Sarries to prioritise retaining the academy grads where possible. But then of course the complaints from other clubs are driven (in part) by the belief that Sarries have not had to make these difficult choices in the same way that other clubs might.
And in not making these difficult choices, they can point to Sarries being able to put out a team last Sunday with 14 players who had featured in the recent World Cup, vs 4 in the Exeter 23. Crude example when both teams have injuries (eg Figallo and Williams vs Slade and Francis) but serves as a snapshot of the gulf between Sarries and the rest.
Quote:JO'G
If unrelated rich supporters were to co-invest with a player in a property company to allow them to live in that nice house, then the Cap officer can't do a thing about it
Quote:Statesman
Duncan96, implicit within your analysis is that the loans would have an imputed salary equivalent value to the player equal to the size of the loan (as assumed by the SCR's) - what that means in English is that the loans were in fact gifts - they were never intended to be repaid - is that what you believe?
FWIW, my take on this is that the loans are more likely to be 'normal' in that they are repayable and attract market rates of interest. So whilst the SCR's might value £1 of loan as £1 of salary the players almost certainly will not. Indeed to the extent that the loan is freely available in the market it would have zero value to the player. Clearly the fact that Wray had to make the loan probably means the Company was not viable without it and therefore the loan would have intrinsic value to the player - but how much? No more than maybe 10p-20p in the £ max.
Suggests to me that the breach that Sarries have been sanctioned for was indeed accidental - a very poor oversight by Wray but nevertheless an oversight - if
Sarries are cheating this is not how they are doing it.
Quote:EXDJ
You could speculate as follows:
- there is precedent for the salary cap officer having approved co-investments in the past (hard to see how you’d get lawyers to sign off on this otherwise, given the way the cap rules are worded as you point out above)
- Wray takes the view that this means any co-investments are fine and goes ahead without checking first (slightly bullish but he has legal back-up)
- the salary cap officer reviews and makes a distinction between the new co-investments (players not putting any money at risk) and the previous co-investments (possibly made on a more basis)
This fits with the “reckless” judgment ie:
“having recognised that there is some risk or possibility, nonetheless deliberately taking a risk of breaching the Regulations;”
Quote:Statesman
BUT £1 of loan will NOT be worth £1 of salary to the player - it will be worth virtually nothing.
So the loans have close to zero impact on Sarries ability to attract and retain a better squad of players.
Quote:Statesman
Duncan96, you have missed my point and I'm trying to help you - so I'll make it again.
Implicit within all of your analysis above is that £1 of loan is worth £1 of salary. You have made this assumption because that is what the SCR's assume.
BUT £1 of loan will NOT be worth £1 of salary to the player - it will be worth virtually nothing.
So the loans have close to zero impact on Sarries ability to attract and retain a better squad of players.
Quote:Poking With Sticks
That's assuming the loans were ever intended to be paid back. The reason a loan retains its value on a 1:1 basis in year under the salary cap is to avoid any shenanigans where a loan made in 2015, say, to be repaid some years down the track, never gets repaid.
I suppose the obvious question would be - how much of the loans has been paid back to date?
Quote:Poking With Sticks
If the loans haven't been paid into, that's not necessarily indicative that they won't be. But if they have been repaid in part, that's at least indicative that they will be.
Quote:EXDJQuote:Poking With Sticks
If the loans haven't been paid into, that's not necessarily indicative that they won't be. But if they have been repaid in part, that's at least indicative that they will be.
MN Property Solutions (Itoje’s company) shows the £280k short term loan being rolled over in full.
Vunprop has only filed one set of accounts (£530k short term loan)
Wiggy9 wasn’t funded with a loan but instead NW put in £189k equity (paying £6512 per share for 29 shares +1) while Wigglesworth put in £70 (paying £1 per share for 70 shares). This one is perhaps hardest to defend...
Quote:Duncan96Quote:EXDJQuote:Poking With Sticks
If the loans haven't been paid into, that's not necessarily indicative that they won't be. But if they have been repaid in part, that's at least indicative that they will be.
MN Property Solutions (Itoje’s company) shows the £280k short term loan being rolled over in full.
Vunprop has only filed one set of accounts (£530k short term loan)
Wiggy9 wasn’t funded with a loan but instead NW put in £189k equity (paying £6512 per share for 29 shares +1) while Wigglesworth put in £70 (paying £1 per share for 70 shares). This one is perhaps hardest to defend...
Now that is interesting. I'm asuming the Wiggy9 equity from NW is preference shares. If that's right then it's no easier or harder to defend than a loan.
Here's the interesting bit: I've had a quick skim of the regs and I can't see where such preference shares would be caught (unless Schedule 1 p is so wide that it's intended to capture anything the salary cap manager wants to, and that might be hard to defend in court).
Can anyone enlighten me?
If I'm right and preference shares aren't caught then, had all the companies been structured with preference shares, we wouldn't have been over the cap meaning no fine or points deduction. More grist to the cock up mill.
Quote:Duncan96
Now that is interesting. I'm asuming the Wiggy9 equity from NW is preference shares. If that's right then it's no easier or harder to defend than a loan.
Here's the interesting bit: I've had a quick skim of the regs and I can't see where such preference shares would be caught (unless Schedule 1 p is so wide that it's intended to capture anything the salary cap manager wants to, and that might be hard to defend in court).
Can anyone enlighten me?
If I'm right and preference shares aren't caught then, had all the companies been structured with preference shares, we wouldn't have been over the cap meaning no fine or points deduction. More grist to the cock up mill.
Quote:EXDJQuote:Duncan96
Now that is interesting. I'm asuming the Wiggy9 equity from NW is preference shares. If that's right then it's no easier or harder to defend than a loan.
Here's the interesting bit: I've had a quick skim of the regs and I can't see where such preference shares would be caught (unless Schedule 1 p is so wide that it's intended to capture anything the salary cap manager wants to, and that might be hard to defend in court).
Can anyone enlighten me?
If I'm right and preference shares aren't caught then, had all the companies been structured with preference shares, we wouldn't have been over the cap meaning no fine or points deduction. More grist to the cock up mill.
I’m afraid you assume wrong...
The statement of capital (filed 3 December 2018) lists (in section 3) both sets of shares (ie Wray’s 29 and Wigglesworth’s 70 - Wray already owned 1) as being ordinary shares. No difference between them, other than a vastly different price per share...
Quote:Duncan96
So it looks like this one definitely didn't cause a salary cap breach then.
Quote:Timfi
Can anyone confirm the statement made by Jim Hamilton that he took a 50% Decrease in wages when he left Montpellier to play for Saracens! if this is true is it not possible that a number of players are not on the megger bucks they just want to play for a team that is winning silverware
Quote:EXDJQuote:Duncan96
So it looks like this one definitely didn't cause a salary cap breach then.
I think that’s quite a favourable interpretation of sch.1 of the salary cap regs.
The lead-in reads: “all amounts referred to in this paragraph 1, whether they are paid...directly or indirectly...by or on behalf of a Club or any Connected Party of the Club, to or in respect of a Player or any Connected Party of the Player” And of course Wray is a Connected Party of the Club and Wiggy9 is a Connected Party of the Player.
Then para (a) refers to “or any other sum”, (m) refers to ”any other financial remuneration (of a form not described above)” and also (p) as you identify above. Putting £189k in Wiggy9’s bank account would seem to be caught by any of these three paras. I wouldn’t want to try to argue in front of an ex-judge that the catch-all wording should never apply to a payment where you’re purchasing equity in a company majority-owned by a player.
I’d expect any revamp of the salary cap regs coming out of the Myners review to clarify exactly the circumstances where JVs are and aren’t permitted, as (provided it is an equal co-investment) I cant imagine PRL want to outlaw these.
Quote:Timfi
Can anyone confirm the statement made by Jim Hamilton that he took a 50% Decrease in wages when he left Montpellier to play for Saracens! if this is true is it not possible that a number of players are not on the megger bucks they just want to play for a team that is winning silverware
Quote:Marlow Nick
The agreed principle of the salary cap is to create an affordable level playing field therefore anyone looking for legal loopholes to spend more money is in breach of the cap principles.
Quote:TonyTaff
Somewhere above in the thread, someone opined that an interpretation 'wouldn't stand up in court'.
That may be the case; PRL have explicitly sought to prevent a member club going to court. I suspect this is because they suspect they would be driven to insolvency defending in court their incompetent auditor and rules, when facing Lansdown, Craig, Wray etc.
For the same reason, the reasons for the decision are going to remain secret!