Saracens Salarygate: Automatic Relegation?

Stephen Jones' unique take. Paywalled, so this is all I could snip.

The part where he says it deserved a 10 point penalty is deluded

Mad stuff altogether.

On a final note, I will go to my grave believing that no payment to a single Saracens player made a blind bit of difference to any match at any time. And that frankly, Saracens have just been too good.

prawnsambo wrote: »

Stephen Jones' unique take. Paywalled, so this is all I could snip.

I know Jones is a troll. But you can't compare the likes of Leinster and Toulouse to sarries and Toulon. Two teams earned their euro success the hard way. Two teams bought the trophies.

Sarries are not the best club team of all time, they are just one of the best currently thanks to some financial magic.

This is actually good for the game, take some wind out of the sugar daddies sails.

**Full Article on Saracens**

"So Saracens are officially relegated. Perhaps we should first look at rugby’s overall landscape and assess how profoundly that has changed everything. Then we can deal with the murky depths into which the game has sunk, and ponder how rugby became one of the world’s most embittered and secret of societies.

And we can try to detect the sport’s supposed values in the fact that no one implicated in imposing the punishment on Saracens can summon up one word for the innocents — their players, followers, those who may now be left unemployed. They have expressed no concern about the ill effects on England of relegating the national team’s core; or the effect on the Saracens academy, the most successful production line for English talent.

Apparently, as long as Premiership Rugby and its members got Sarries in the end, all this is subjugated, the injured innocents mere collateral damage. Any explanation? Premiership Rugby is almost silent, its chief executive and chairman apparently almost mute, refusing to share with the public until the briefest of statements last night.

The Premiership is palpably diminished for next season. Some of us have seen some club rugby: Cardiff and Newport, Bath and Leicester and Wasps, Leinster and Munster, Toulouse, Brive and Stade Francais in their greatest years. None can touch Saracens. In this era, they have been the greatest club team I have seen. Without Saracens for a season, there will be one excellent team (Exeter), three clubs improving but nowhere remotely near there yet (Gloucester, Sale and Northampton) but above all, a mid-table of inconsistent clubs who can all lose to anyone on the day.

With relegation now decided, all the energy, panic, bigger crowds and drama are drained away. Most of the rest of this season will be as dull as ditchwater. A priceless lesson for anyone wanting to ring-fence the competition.

It will also be easy to say that the landscape will change for a vast number of the disabled, indisposed, mentally unwell, lonely and the ageing, by any cut in the Saracens finances. But the umbrella for the unfortunate will not go away. I am positive that Nigel Wray will continue the Saracens Foundation, because it is arguably a bigger part of his life than Saracens rugby ever was.

But back to changes. Everyone knows that rugby is strangling itself by a lack of independence in its officialdom. Premiership Rugby, like all other rugby institutions, still consists of a bunch of blokes with a massive vested interest calling shots to suit themselves. It is nonsensical that the people who have sat in judgment recently on Saracens are their rivals. Will the penny drop? Rugby is unfit to govern itself.

Last week, we read about 10 different estimates of how far Saracens were over the salary cap. In the world of secrecy you can make up your own figure. The real problem for the club’s rivals was that the savagery of the original punishment was not enough. It did not kill them off. So the new “trials” began, completed processes were reactivated.

As the days went by, Saracens apparently received more letters from on high, demanding this and that and even reparations, which were completely outside the regulations. Then another investigation was called, which Premier Rugby’s chief executive declared could well introduce even more swingeing measures.

At the Saracens end, the very able Edward Griffiths had been brought in to clean up the mess. He had been away from the club scene for a long time but, by all accounts, quickly tried to sort things, fired off apologies, committed to reduce Saracens’ salaries if needed. Naturally, any players he tried to offload held no interest for the Premiership clubs, because it suited them not to do business with Saracens. But suddenly, Saracens were being pressed almost instantaneously to prove that they were under the salary cap for this season, which is halfway through, and to do so within days. Within days.

Their opponents realised that, under the regulations, they could not relegate Saracens. No way. So they made relegation impossible to avoid by punishing Saracens for a season half over. You would not have to be a Saracen to find some of this reprehensible.

Even those of us who, after the initial two years, never believed in the salary cap, realise that the laws must be adhered to. Only last week I was regaled by one of the attendees at the original meeting where the salary cap was passed, by 7-5, after which most of the delegates emerged laughing at how ineffective the move was likely to be. Even now it is still laughably easy to get round it if you want to.

And the confidentiality? The secrecy in rugby now has gone beyond all reason. Media officers are not allowed to spread anything in the way of information. Everything has become a secret.

Some matters are in the open, however. Saracens infringed the salary cap, an offence which deserved, say, a 10-point penalty. They are relegated. There will be enormous problems which the club are trying to fix. On a final note, I will go to my grave believing that no payment to a single Saracens player made a blind bit of difference to any match at any time. And that frankly, Saracens have just been too good."

**Plus another bit on England's 6 Nations Squad**

"**Now is time for Jones to move on from likes of Youngs and Tuilagi**

It all begins again tomorrow, when England announce their training squad from which their Six Nations squad will be chosen. Which measurements will Eddie Jones apply in his final deliberations? Current merit? Experience? Degree by which a choice thumbs his nose at public or media opinion? Blatant unknown?

All good fun. Or is it? Jones is the man who helped inspire the greatest performance in England rugby history, the savaging of New Zealand in the World Cup semi-final. And also admitted to (some of) his mistakes in the selection and set-up of the squad at the start and end of the tournament and which helped cost them the final.

One sure way to get much of the nation on his side is to win a grand slam this year. Some of us had enough, decades ago, of selection based on a misty-eyed tilting at a distant future in which only one game of about 46 (the World Cup final) matters a damn.

And we have become tired of pointing out that a grand slam, a wonderful achievement in so internecine and tight a competition, is a national boost of epic proportions. Short-term glory. Basking. Glinting. You cannot beat it. And it carries you forward on a wave benign enough to surf upon.

Saracens’ players have to be assessed. Many of them will, in their hearts, put the fortunes of their club above those of England at present. Then Jones can start to atone for scrum errors. Dan Cole will surely be moved out and I would also leave out Ellis Genge, pending further evidence. Harry Williams of Exeter will take up the squad place he deserved in Japan but never won. Ehren Painter of Northampton is a longish shot at tight-head

Behind the scrum, the endless search for the correct midfield is into its 17th season, but this time should be conducted in the absence of Manu Tuilagi. Mark Atkinson of Gloucester is more consistent, he is hefty, but he can also play. Luke and Sam James, of Sale, deserve a shot, maybe as a double-double act with the Curry twins.

The best scrum halves? On merit, Richard Wigglesworth, Ben Spencer and either Dan Robson or Joe Simpson. Sorry, but the World Cup selection was wrong in the position, so for me these three succeed Ben Youngs and Willi Heinz.

Alex Dombrandt of Harlequins, Jack Willis of Wasps and the resurgent Teimana Harrison of Northampton will contend in the back row, and as for a mature bolter, who is better as a back-up at fly half than Bristol’s Callum Sheedy?

All these men are on form. Not that that means an awful lot to a certain head coach. We wait, and wince, for tomorrow. Dear Eddie, dear England."

I'll be very interested to see what happens to the likes of McCall. I'd imagine he won't be going anywhere given his l success is massively tainted now.

The knock on impact of this are massive. Can England have multiple players in a lower division? Can the Lions go into a test series with a number of test players having had their feet up for a domestic season?

It will be interestint to see who departs. I'd imagine other teams are already all over a number of players. Farrell and Kruis have already said they're staying there.

If lads go to France, they're out of international contention but I reckon a few will go there anyway. Anyone over 30 should be on their bike straight away.

Buer wrote: »

I'll be very interested to see what happens to the likes of McCall. I'd imagine he won't be going anywhere given his l success is massively tainted now.

The knock on impact of this are massive. Can England have multiple players in a lower division? Can the Lions go into a test series with a number of test players having had their feet up for a domestic season?

It will be interestint to see who departs. I'd imagine other teams are already all over a number of players. Farrell and Kruis have already said they're staying there.

If lads go to France, they're out of international contention but I reckon a few will go there anyway. Anyone over 30 should be on their bike straight away.

A friend who supports Newcastle Falcons said that when Falcons got relegated they gave the players contracts which meant they could go elsewhere for the year and come back when the club is promoted to the Premiership again.

So I imagine Sarries could do something similar. French clubs would probably pay big money for the big names even for just one year. If a French club needs a dynamic secod row, how much would they pay Itoje to plug that gap for the year?

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

A friend who supports Newcastle Falcons said that when Falcons got relegated they gave the players contracts which meant they could go elsewhere for the year and come back when the club is promoted to the Premiership again.

So I imagine Sarries could do something similar. French clubs would probably pay big money for the big names even for just one year. If a French club needs a dynamic secod row, how much would they pay Itoje to plug that gap for the year?

It'll be two years until they can go back up due to the salary cap regulations, and by then most of their players contracts will have lapsed unless they agree to sign a new contract ahead of time to say they'll return to Sarries for the 2022/23 season, which I can't see many players wanting to do.

stephen_n wrote: »

As someone pointed out earlier, Sarries are down for two years at least. They would also have to get themselves below the salary cap next year, two be able to come back up in two years.

Ah fair enough. I wonder if they'll waive that rule for Sarries. Two years in the championship could kill the club.

typhoony wrote: »

Are the players going to take massive pay- cuts if they stay, Saracens can't afford them and the players are under contract so if they decide not to take a pay-cut there's not much Saracens can do. Either pay them off to leave or keep them but their contracts are over

The players will have relegation clauses in their contracts. So if they want to go, it's on them.