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Saracens Salarygate: Automatic Relegation?

thomond2006

It's probably worth its own thread by now.

RugbyPass reporting that Saracens could be set for automatic relegation after failing to reduce their salaries in time.

https://amp.rugbypass.com/news/saracens-stand-on-brink-of-automatic-relegation-as-nightmare-season-set-to-continue/?__twitter_impression=true

Now this is Rugbypass who are quite clickbaity so let's see if more media run with this.

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thomond2006

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Would they be allowed to play in Europe from the Championship? I also doubt that even playing in Europe would make up for the loss of Prem money, so they'd still be asset stripped of players in the summer.

No, the Championship play fixtures on ERCC weekends.

I don't think Saracens would care about Europe anyway if they were allowed to play.

thomond2006

Apparently an emergency meeting with the players was due at 8:30. I imagine we'll hear the outcome very shortly.

jr86

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Would they be allowed to play in Europe from the Championship? I also doubt that even playing in Europe would make up for the loss of Prem money, so they'd still be asset stripped of players in the summer.

It definitely wouldn't and of course they'd be severely weakened personnel wise but it would keep them in existence for a bit longer anyway

thomond2006

J*nes stating the truth will come out. :pac:

I wonder if he's being paid by word or by tweet?

Squidgy Black

thomond2006 wrote: »

J*nes stating the truth will come out. :pac:

I wonder if he's being paid by word or by tweet?

Saying that people will have to wait until Sunday when he publishes "the real story".

The man's utterly deluded.

stephen_n

prawnsambo wrote: »

Wray has reportedly written off a £45 million debt from the club. That's pretty deep as pockets go!

Another option for them is to impose an immediate pay cut on player's salaries, but with an undertaking to make it up in the following season when they can let players go as contracts come to an end. It would mean that they'd be going into next season with some of their cap eaten up and therefore in a worse position than any other club in the premiership. Which would seem fair.

Sure making you the short fall and paying redundancies would still put them above the cap next year unless they let all the big guns go.

jr86

thomond2006 wrote: »

No, the Championship play fixtures on ERCC weekends.

I'm sure it'd be facilitated though

If you earn your place, you deserve your place in fairness

I know its football, but when cardiff and Millwall made FA Cup finals they were playing for European football the year after despite being in championship at the time

Cookiemunster

jr86 wrote: »

I'm sure it'd be facilitated though

If you earn your place, you deserve your place in fairness

I know its football, but when cardiff and Millwall made FA Cup finals they were playing for European football the year after despite being in championship at the time

Different sport, different rules. The ERCC is a competition for clubs from the Pro14, Top14 and Premiership. They'd be denying one Premiership club a place in the Champions Cup and another (this years Championship winners) a place in the Challenge Cup.

[Deleted User]

thomond2006 wrote: »

No, the Championship play fixtures on ERCC weekends.

I don't think Saracens would care about Europe anyway if they were allowed to play.

It would be easy to focus on Europe, they'd absolutely walk the Championship. Probably win every match, good chance of a BP in every match.

jr86

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Different sport, different rules. The ERCC is a competition for clubs from the Pro14, Top14 and Premiership. They'd be denying one Premiership club a place in the Champions Cup and another (this years Championship winners) a place in the Challenge Cup.

Yeah on league position

But there's a completely separate place for last year's winners. I'd doubt there's any clauses about the division they operate in, given the chances of the winner being relegated was so ludicrous to even consider.

They wouldn't be denying any premiership team a place in the champions cup though. The top 6 or 7 or whatever it is qualify anyway, the spot for last year's winners is completely separate to that. Chances are the previous winners will always qualify by merit in their league anyway so its usually not an issue

stephen_n

Interested Observer wrote: »

It would be easy to focus on Europe, they'd absolutely walk the Championship. Probably win every match, good chance of a BP in every match.

Only if they hold on to the players, which would be very unlikely given the cut in wages that would be required.

jr86

stephen_n wrote: »

Only if they hold on to the players, which would be very unlikely given the cut in wages that would be required.

A lot of their fringe players have been playing well this season. They've used 42 players or so in Europe and are going to qualify for the knockouts. The academy guys are no slouches

The championship is a woeful standard, Newcastle lost their best players but will likely go 100% this year

Dravokivich

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Theyre expected to obey the cap every season though, not just when caught.

So its their own fault they went in to this season planning to cheat.

Otherwise youre basically giving them this season for free to do what they want.

The verdict should have anticipated the current season also, with the aim to be correct for following season (if surviving both the fine and points reduction) . With redundancies and payouts for cutting contracts going to be marked against them it should be expected they'll blow the cap again.

awec

Sure they can join the Pro14. Raises the standard of the league significantly, and they can spend as much money as they want without worrying about caps.

sydthebeat

stephen_n wrote: »

Only if they hold on to the players, which would be very unlikely given the cut in wages that would be required.

no salary cap in the championship

awec

sydthebeat wrote: »

no salary cap in the championship

There is if you want to get promoted.

sydthebeat

awec wrote: »

There is if you want to get promoted.

point being though that the could walk the championship, play european HC rugby, and worry about the salary cap at the end of the season.

it would be a hard reset, but not as hard as getting rid of players right now, and still risk relegation.

prawnsambo

Dravokivich wrote: »

The verdict should have anticipated the current season also, with the aim to be correct for following season (if surviving both the fine and points reduction) . With redundancies and payouts for cutting contracts going to be marked against them it should be expected they'll blow the cap again.

Well they were told they had to be compliant this season or face further sanctions. Are you suggesting that they should have got a free run this season and break the cap again?

sydthebeat

prawnsambo wrote: »

Well they were told they had to be compliant this season or face further sanctions. Are you suggesting that they should have got a free run this season and break the cap again?

every team knows they have to be compliant going into a season.

it seems sarries were told that there was period benchmarks where they had to show they were operating within the cap, and failed to do this.

irishbucsfan

awec wrote: »

Sure they can join the Pro14. Raises the standard of the league significantly, and they can spend as much money as they want without worrying about caps.

I’m sure the RFU would jump at the chance to approve that!

whatawaster

Don't Sarries have the best academy in England?

Cut loose a few big names - Daly, Williams, Kruis

Send the ones you really want to keep (Farrell, Itoje, George, Vunipola x 2) on loan to Connacht for the year.

Get promotion with ease

Then in 18 months time, you have a slimmed down squad, but still retain your key England players

Squidgy Black

There's no salary cap in the championship, if they get relegated they're under no obligation to cut players for next season, it'd only have to be the following season when they get promoted that they'd have to clean up the books.

thomond2006

Squidgy Black wrote: »

There's no salary cap in the championship, if they get relegated they're under no obligation to cut players for next season, it'd only have to be the following season when they get promoted that they'd have to clean up the books.

Having no salary cap is of little relevance if you have no money in the first place.

Saracens get relegated. Sponsors and players scarper. Where does the money come from?

Squidgy Black

thomond2006 wrote: »

Having no salary cap is of little relevance if you have no money in the first place.

Saracens get relegated. Sponsors and players scarper. Where does the money come from?

Wray just wrote off a massive chunk of their debt, I'd say they'd have no issues building up more debt for a season to get promoted, ala Bristol or even London Irish. They'll still be bankrolled by Wray's family.

I'm not saying that the squad wouldn't suffer and players leave etc, but they wouldn't be under obligation to send players out on loan for financial reasons, only contractually.

KBurke85

Squidgy Black wrote: »

Wray just wrote off a massive chunk of their debt, I'd say they'd have no issues building up more debt for a season to get promoted, ala Bristol or even London Irish. They'll still be bankrolled by Wray's family.

I'm not saying that the squad wouldn't suffer and players leave etc, but they wouldn't be under obligation to send players out on loan for financial reasons, only contractually.

Another issue is players have relegation clauses in their contracts so they probably wont be willing to hang around playing Championship rugby especially in a Lions year

Henry Ford III

They appear to be adequately funded. A written off loan is the same as a gift. Wray has seemingly cut his ties but his shares are now in a family trust, and it wouldn't surprise me if he still had control. If they continued to break the salary cap this season (as is claimed) their cashflow was adequate too.

They appear to have made little or no effort to comply. No offloading players or reducing payments. That is essentially 2 fingers to the league. Arrogance in spades.

The entire organisation is poison at this point. Relegate them now or wind them up and start again cleanly.

un5byh7sqpd2x0

Interested Observer wrote: »

It would be easy to focus on Europe, they'd absolutely walk the Championship. Probably win every match, good chance of a BP in every match.

With no players??

molloyjh

So winning Europe would not allow Saracens compete in the HEC again next season:

https://twitter.com/willgkelleher/status/1218137587963060225?s=19

Dave_The_Sheep

Delicious.

[Deleted User]

Wonder how clean the other clubs are...they'd really want to be if they push this through