SARACENS ARE CALLING for the Premiership to abolish its salary cap, which is set to rise to £5.5million next season.
The club has released a statement on their official website claiming that it is leading a “consensus” among English clubs, who are said to be keen to release the “handbrake” of the salary cap.
This statement comes hot on the heels of the announcement of Dan Carter’s agreement to join Racing Métro on a three-year contract worth around €1.5million per season.
Saracens say that seven of the 12 Premiership clubs have indicated that they would be in favour of scrapping the salary cap, although there is no mention of which clubs those are.
France’s Top 14 currently has a salary cap of €10.5million, but there are doubts as to whether certain clubs actually remain within that threshold.
“The salary cap has served its purpose,” says Saracens chief executive Edward Griffiths in his club’s statement.
It’s time to seize a golden opportunity to grow the game, to ensure a level playing field in Europe, to build the strongest league in world rugby and to let players earn market-related salaries.”
“The clubs need to encourage investment, to provide the spectacle and quality deserved by our broadcast partner, BT Sport, and title sponsor, Aviva.
“It would be a pity if the world’s top players light up the World Cup on English soil, and then leave to play club rugby in France. If the salary cap is left to forbid the required investment, it will kill any hope of growth.”
“English clubs must compete in the European Champions Cup against Irish and French clubs spending two or three times as much on players.
Imagine the likes of Arsenal and Manchester City being asked to compete with Barcelona, FC Bayern and Real Madrid under those circumstances. It would never happen, but it happens in rugby.
“Strong legal opinion suggests the salary cap, as applied, breaches European competition laws.
“We understand some clubs fear the removal of the salary cap will cause wage inflation yet, in reality, salaries are already being driven by the French clubs. We can either sit back and become a second rate ‘lowest common denominator’ league, or we can leap forward.
Lastly, we must be fair to England international players, who are encouraged to play club rugby in England to be eligible for the national team.
“Their salaries should be determined by the free market, nothing less. It is simply unfair, inequitable and possibly illegal for their pay to be restrained by the artificial mechanism of an outdated salary cap.
“Time moves on. Situations change. The game needs to evolve. In the interests of English rugby, in the interests of building the best league in the world, in the interests of the sponsors and broadcasters, in the interests of the players… it is time to #scrapthecap.”
It remains to be seen whether other English clubs release similar statements in support of Saracens’ motion.
Irish clubs are spending two or three times more than the English clubs on players?
Whatever he is on, I want some. Now.
The Irish provinces are spending more.
They are not. The whole player budget for the 3 big provinces is less than Toulons squad.
No Cian. Total budget for players and managment for the 4 provinces is around 32M€. much ,more than Toulon’s total budget (25M)
With the squad that Saracens have there is no way that they stick to the salary cap anyway.
Rugby is really going in the wrong direction with the money men pulling the strings more and more.
Saracens represent everything that is wrong with club rugby. I’m a Leinster fan but I pray to God our southern brethren open a huge can of whoop ass on them in their next encounter
Learn the lessons of their football premiership. Only a few competitive rich clubs awash with money, foreigners and foreign fans. Effectively franchises. English players a rarity and so therefore reflected in the quality of the national team. Thats what you get when money men rule.
How is removing the cap going to make it more competitave? The big clubs will get bigger and the small will struggle.
By the way I think he is bluffing about the salary cap being illegal under competition law. I actually know a bit about this and it’s a very dry technical argument, but I don’t think he is right.
He completely fails to understand (or understands but doesn’t care) the so called “peculiar economics” of sport. In business the assumption for free markets is that firms act rationally in the pursuit of profit. Now, you don’t need to buy into the doctrine of free markets hook line and sinker to acknowledge that in some industries and at least some of the time this is true. But sport is different. The “firms” don’t act rationally, they gamble on success. They don’t try to maximise profit, they try to maximise success while acting within the constraint of staying solvent. In real business firms gain advantage by dominating their competitors. In sport, dominance turns spectators off and reduces revenues. In real business, bad firms fail (unless you’re a bank!). In sport, bad firms don’t fail. If Saracens lose money they get given more. If Nigel Wray died someone else would buy the club. Although it’s not as strong in rugby as it is in football, clubs are de facto natural monopolies. If Newcastle went bust their fans wouldn’t support Sunderland. Lastly, if one club is out of control, everyone else must overspend to stay in touch.
All of this is why sport leagues need strong regulations and not be subjected to free markets. The Americans get this more than most, which says a lot.
In football the pan-European competitions are run by UEFA not the clubs. This allows UEFA to introduce Financial Fair Play rules which I support but I think they are at least 15 years too late. Rugby’s problem is that the clubs organise their own pan-European competition and the big clubs drive the agenda, which is what we are seeing Saracens doing here. They also want a minimum spending floor in England and want S African teams in Europe. Rugby really needs a strong umbrella body like UEFA to take charge of the European competitions and organise the clubs and kick them into line. FIRA-AER would be the ideal body but it has no control over any 6 Nations issues. It is completely elitist on that level, and not a single penny of European Cup rugby revenues go outside the competing countries, unlike in football. Rugby is doing its best to make the same mistakes football made in letting TV take control of the sport and as the game grows financial instability will become widespread.
I gave a public lecture on this topic in London back in June and Jeff Probyn and Hugh Godwin, our panelists, agreed with me :)
Saracens posts annual losses in the region of £3 million each year and Nigel Wray has pumped over £15m into the club. It is madness to think they are in favour of abolishing the salary cap. I also feel that their primary aim is to wrest control of English rugby from the RU and then get their greedy little paws on the financial purse strings.
More Money means a need for Bigger crowd attendances which means Less Amateur Players available on a Saturday which means you can kiss grass roots rugby Goodbye….
Let the market dictate what the players should be paid.. Putting caps on won’t work if they’re different in different leagues