Salary cap for the Top 14!

[Blackswan]

In news that could have a profound effect on the movement of players across the globe, La Ligue Nationale de Rugby (LNR) have announced the implementation of a salary cap in France from the 2010-2011 season.

From next season, clubs will be limited to a salary budget of 8 million Euros ( 7,1 Million GBP or 11, 5 Millions USD). .....................

Indirectly linked to salary cap is the implementation of quotas on 'foreign players'. From next season, all French clubs will be obliged to have a minimum of 40 per cent of players "trained in France" (i.e. from French academies), a drop from the 50 per cent initially planned.

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,2...776981,00.html

[Burgs]

How many in a T14 Squad?
Still sounds like a pretty handy pie to carve up.
I know a couple of years ago a mid level starting Prop was getting around $110k for the Force.

[James]

For a long season like theirs you'd probably need at least 40. 11.5 million USD is like 12.5 mil AUD and they were going to offer Giteau something like 10 million for 4 years so thats 1/5 of your budget in one player. It might not make a huge difference but it will take the pressure off a bit.

[Flat-top]

This is a significant change however I doubt if they will be able to enforce it, there are many tried and tested means of getting around existing caps and this will be no different.

To put the 8m Euro budget into perspective see the declared budgets for 2009/10 below with the variation of previous season also shown.

Les budgets 2009-2010

Stade Français : 21 M Eur (+ 3 M Eur)
Clermont : 18,9 M Eur (+ 1,9 M Eur)
Toulouse : 17 M Eur (=)
Toulon : 16,5 M Eur (+ 2,5 M Eur)
Brive : 16 M Eur (+ 3 M Eur)
Racing Métro 92 : 16 M Eur
Biarritz : 14 M Eur (+ 0,5 M Eur)
Perpignan : 13 M Eur (+ 1 M Eur)
Montpellier : 12,8 M Eur (+ 1,3 M Eur)
Bayonne : 12 M Eur (+ 0,5 M Eur)
Castres : 11 M Eur (=)
Montauban : 10,2 M Eur (+0,7 M Eur)
Bourgoin : 10 M Eur (+ 0,2 M Eur)
Albi : 8 M Eur

Don't believe there is any limit on the size of squad so difficult to provide those numbers. If you took any single club as an example, say Castres (as they are top of Top 14) then they have 45 registered players funded from their 11m euro, this includes imports from NZ (Chris Masoe & Carl Hoeft). Clermont are 2nd in the league at the moment andthey only support 32 registered players from their 18.9m euro, including of course Brock James.

[TOCC]

it doesnt seem to make sense to establish a salary cap which is merely in line with the lowest clubs budget, realistically they should have at least worked out the average of the current salary budgets and used that, so maybe closer to 14 M Eur

[GIGS20]

unless there was another agenda than just evening the spread between the rich and the poor.

I would think cutting the salaries by that much would have to reduce the number of foreign players on the roster......similarly having an upper limit on the number of foreigners in the squad will help protect the locals' salary base.

[Flat-top]

GIGS20 you are spot on about the reasoning however experience in the Guinness Premiership where we have employed a salary cap for some time proves that it is simply impossible to apply and enforce. Teams have easy ways around this, they simply "employ" the players wife or partner as a 'secretary' on silly wages, provide houses and cars that are not part of the salary package or get local business or sponsers to pay the marque players directly rather than go through the official accounts.

[TOCC]

a salary cap is not completely impossible to force, the NRL and AFL in australia enforce it quite stringently, possibly over the top.

It accounts for those 'payments' that you just mentioned, there was a article only recently about NRL player Fuifui Moimoi, his team the Parramatta Eels had his son flown over from NZ on the eve of one of his matches because of some family issues. The NRL salary cap auditor priced the act at $1500, even though the ticket only cost $130.

[shasta]

The NRL salary cap auditor priced the act at $1500, even though the ticket only cost $130.

I wonder how easy it would be to challenge rulings like that. Seems pretty heavy handed to me. Wouldn't it also be difficult to enforce oversight of a partner's earnings? I'd imagine she would have rights to privacy unless she was a party to the contract.

I suppose in light of recent revelations that should have read she/he.