Saracens docked 35 points

[mike909]

If this is not cleared up then English rugby is in dire straits. Much as I find following the current England set up hard, it does rely upon a strong Prem providing the players

If the Prem ends, or ends up as a shell of a comp or it becomes a Euro league - then the national team will suffer long term.

This needs to be nailed. No club ought to be able to put out basically an international team, just look at the pack, Mako, George, Kock, Itoje, Kruis, Billy plus perm two flankers

And that's a team able to have a "reserve" SRs Skelton and Nick I.

[DGP Wasp]

I havent seen anything but wonder if any rugby nauses have taken the time to pull finances from companies house to see what sort of numbers we are talking about...the reason i say this is today House of Rugby podcast discusses the situation. Rob Vickerman quite firmly says that the part that pisses him off is the lable that Wray has the offence to pin to the cheating.
He rightly points out that it has nothing to do with welfare as the co op's are only with his top players, not the squad. He also goes on to say he has pulled some data from Companies house and that Maro's company went and bought a 1.5million property, Faz has a 750k one. These are big numbers today, I hate to think what these will be worth in 10 years and if they even stop at just one investment.

Yes, dressing it up as player welfare is the most transparent BS.  The players with the big investments are big name internationals who are very unlikely to fall on hard times post-retirement.  Media work, coaching, after dinner speaking... Even a career outside of rugby will not be hard to find as certain companies will bend over backwards to have someone of their profile on board as a "consultant".

The players that are more likely to fall on hard times post-rugby are those without the high profile, that turned out week in week out for their clubs, mostly falling under the international radar, earning a fraction of what an EPS squad member does (even legitimately within the cap), and these kinds of players at all of the other 11 Premiership clubs are being denied opportunities of success and recognition by one team's cheating.

Really gets my back up.

[DGP Wasp]

And on a point of order, if Sarries haven't officially appealed yet, just announced their intention to appeal through media statements, then surely the 35 point deduction still stands and Wasps move up a place??!!

[BG]

I havent seen anything but wonder if any rugby nauses have taken the time to pull finances from companies house to see what sort of numbers we are talking about...the reason i say this is today House of Rugby podcast discusses the situation. Rob Vickerman quite firmly says that the part that pisses him off is the lable that Wray has the offence to pin to the cheating.
He rightly points out that it has nothing to do with welfare as the co op's are only with his top players, not the squad. He also goes on to say he has pulled some data from Companies house and that Maro's company went and bought a 1.5million property, Faz has a 750k one. These are big numbers today, I hate to think what these will be worth in 10 years and if they even stop at just one investment.

Anyone can get to the basic details on Companies house but you need a logon to get to the finer details. All accountantancy firms will have this.


What's interesting is the properties are owned by LTD companies, and the player will be a director.

People who have multiple properties will almost certainly have those properties part of a LTD company and that company then rents them out at market rates.

The big question is whether the LTD companies, where the player is a director, is charging a market rent or whether the property is being rented back to the player personally on a peppercorn rent... which HMRC (disregarding PRL) would be very interested in.

What PRL would (or should) be interested in, is where the capital came from to buy the property. Was it bought with a high street mortgage or did it come from someone offering a very low interest rate loan.. that might never be asked to be paid back and written off as a bad debt later into the future.

[westwaleswasp]

Actually I can see this happening.  A possible league could be:

- Sacracens, Bath, and Bristol, then 1 of Us, Leicester and Exeter for England,
- Glasgow from Scotland, 
- Osprays, Scarlets  or Cardiff for Wales (I am thinking Osprays, but I don't know enough about Welsh Rugby to know who are the most popular),
- Leinster and Munster for Ireland and
- Stade, Toulon, Racing and Claremont for France (again I don't really know who the most popular / richest clubs are in France)

I would think crowd size and money would be the 2 criteria for competing. Maybe that is why they are so obviously sticking 2 fingers up at everybody else, they already have plans?

The Welsh don't have any cash, nor much in the way of large attendances. They are also rather unlikely to want such a league- derby pro 14 games draw big crowds, they thirst here for Scarlets vs Ospreys, Cardiff vs Dragons.  Watching a denuded ospreys team lose to Munster seconds on a wet Friday in Swansea has little appeal for most fans, sadly.

The problem with a super league is what happens when the Man City type owners come along. Frankly Tigers, Glaws and Wasps would be attractive packages for their name and history, and in the long run poor old Nige might find his pockets not deep enough. It would be a case of just desserts , but the damage to rugby would be immeasurable.


 
 

 

[matelot22]

I think we should email/tweet our clubs and PRL to this effect. I am certainly not giving any more of my money to premiership rugby (via tickets, merch or TV) until they can provide assurances that cheats are identified and dealt with.

Do you know what, I think I will look to do this at the weekend and possibly add BT sport for effect.

[Westy68]

This whole thing is genuinely putting me off rugby right now.

Seriously, what is the point in following the Premiership when one team blatantly cheats right out in the open and nothing is done about it?

This sums up my feeling perfectly.

I also agree, finding it harder to get so excited about the coming seasons, if Sarries allowed to keep cheating.

Got fed up with football about 12 years, heading the same way with rugby. Will not stop watching international’s but what is the point of the premiership

[mike909]

Ditto football - enjoying my team in the Championship much more. Even games and less hype.

[matelot22]

Further to the earlier post, here is the contact email address for premiership rugby:

info@premiershiprugby.com

[Brandnewtorugby]

One of Chris Ashton's points on the 5 live pod was something like Sarries were applying a London weighting due to the cost of houses! But also, apparently none of these deals were part of contract negotiation anyway. In fairness to Ugo, he pushed back a bit.

I am increasingly irritated by the smug demeanour of Sarries representatives as well and am surprised at the reach of their PR, which must be costing.

I don't envy Sarries, I was pleased to see an open style win the Prem a couple of seasons ago (the last one wasn't quite so good imo), but feel cross that they did it unfairly. I feel disillusioned and will vote with my feet. As a direct result, I'm not going to the Prem final this year, which is a bit sad as it had started to become a tradition for me and my lad. I am also not going to watch Wasps play them at the Ricoh either and will inform Wasps. I don't care what name they chuck at me, such as hater, or envious etc. and I know my stand will make no difference to them, but I can choose not to be a part of it.

[St Bruno]

Here's a suggestion. We should all refer to them as The Asterisks in future.

[BG]

Further to the earlier post, here is the contact email address for premiership rugby:

info@premiershiprugby.com

Its interesting to see where their email servers are located

[NellyWellyWaspy]

Dublin. Interesting to see who owns the server address; J2Global (who own, among other things, the Ziff Davies publishing empire).

[Hymenoptera]

Unless i am missing something, they have been found guilty and dealt with. They have sanction in place and appealing is a given.
Lets just wait and see what happens.
There will be no European league. Its much more complicated than that and other competitions are quite happy with their current setup. I also suspect Sarries are alone in this. I don't see Bath or Bristol wanting to spend more just because they can, I believe Craig has calmed down on his previous idea's. Salaries should be worried, if by magic the appeal is upheld, I foresee a fallout with the other clubs and like it or not, Salarycens need the other clubs more than they need them.

[Chilham]

.... We should all refer to them as The Asterisks in future.

Seconded.