Owen Slot in the Times
Rivals’ dossier aided Saracens fall
Rival clubs were feeding information to Premier Rugby about Saracens’ suspected breaches of the salary cap, helping to put in place the investigation that resulted in the English and European champions being relegated.
Harlequins were one of the clubs that did their own investigations and compiled what The Times has been told was a “huge dossier”. The information was then passed on to Andrew Rogers, the Premier Rugby (PRL) salary cap manager.
The south west London club were working on their dossier towards the end of 2018, which is when PRL began its investigation. Harlequins started searching for information through Companies House, unearthing information about the network of co-investments that Nigel Wray, the then Saracens chairman and owner, had entered into with some of his players.
Harlequins also shared details about alleged property ownership in north London and the St Albans area and about farm ownership in South Africa.
Other clubs were also passing information to Rogers, The Times understands. It was felt that his one-man department was understaffed and could do with all the help he could get.
One of the deals that PRL was advised to investigate was the move by Jim Hamilton, the Scotland lock, from Montpellier to Saracens in 2014. Hamilton chose to go to Saracens despite the interest of other English clubs.
Some of the information that the clubs passed to PRL came second-hand through player agents. At the time, Saracens had a history of cutting agents out of their players’ contract deals, which enraged the agents, who were then happy to pass on their own knowledge of how Saracens were doing their business.
The investigation by PRL finally came to fruition in the ruling last November that Saracens had breached the cap in three successive seasons. They were initially fined £5.36 million and docked 35 points. When it became clear last week that they were set to break the salary cap again this season, they accepted automatic relegation.
Throughout the process, Saracens have worked to keep information of the illegal deals exposed by the PRL investigation out of the public eye.
Many people at PRL want to publish the judgment, but that would require the approval of all the clubs and Darren Childs, the PRL chief executive, said yesterday that Saracens had gone out of their way to prevent it happening.
Two months ago, Mark McCall, the Saracens director of rugby, said that he would like the judgment to be published. However, that is clearly not the official position of the club.
“I would be very keen to look at a more open approach,” Childs said. “But just so we are really clear, there is a specific action by Saracens to tell us not to release. We do not have their consent to release that document and we have that in writing from them.”
Childs also said yesterday that in the unlikely event that Saracens overcome their 35-point deduction to finish in fourth — they are 29 points behind fourth-placed Sale with 14 games to go — they would not be allowed to compete in the play-offs.
“The current thinking is that if they hit top four, they won’t be participating in the play-offs,” Childs said. “The fifth-placed club will take part instead. We are still working through the final details. This is a club that for four years in a row has failed to demonstrate its compliance with the league’s regulations.”
Childs said that the review into PRL’s governance aimed to “make sure nothing like this can ever happen again.” He said: “The only outcome I want to make sure of is [that] we are never in this situation again.”
England rules to be decided
There is no decision yet on whether Saracens players could keep playing for England if they move to a foreign club on loan next season.
The RFU has an agreement that all England players must play for an English club, barring “exceptional circumstances”. “Anything to do with exemptions and exceptional circumstances is a bit hypothetical at this stage,” Bill Sweeney, the RFU chief executive, said. “The first time we need to consider things like that are the autumn internationals.”
Topic: It was Quins wot did 'em in (Read 2034 times)
Always a Wasp