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It is almost endearing, this steadfast insistence by Saracens that their demotion and disgrace stem from nothing more than a spot of clerical oversight. The full details of the disciplinary report that triggered their relegation from the Premiership highlight how their methods of subverting the salary cap were, to say the least, exotic. An interest-free loan to help the Vunipola brothers buy a property, lump-sum payments to Maro Itoje from a hospitality company: these are not the actions of a club that had simply forgotten how to use a calculator.
Let us spell out Saracens’ behaviour for what it is. For three consecutive seasons, they cheated their way to glory, and could offer no means of proving that they were not doing so again. They have expressed contrition only to their own fans, not to the clubs left in the shadow of their ill-gotten success. And their commitment to transparency is such that when their chief executive, Edward Griffiths, was approached for comment by the BBC outside Allianz Park, he spread his hand over the camera lens, like a fugitive double glazing salesman on Rogue Traders.
Somehow, in the face of Saracens’ recklessness, there are still those who feel they have been hard done-by. There are claims that the club’s treatment has been “vindictive”, as one staunch defender of the club put it, and disproportionate. After all, or so this curious logic goes, they only breached the cap for 2017-18 by a meagre £98,000. In such a school of thought, there is no mention that over the previous campaign, they overspent by £1.1 million, or in 2018-19 by £906,000. Nor is there much allowance for the fact that when Saracens accepted relegation they avoided a full audit of their affairs.
Proportion is all about perspective. And viewed from another angle, there is an argument that Saracens’ sanctions do not go far enough. In other codes, plenty of precedent exists for punishing clubs found guilty of financial irregularities by stripping them of their titles. In 2010, Melbourne Storm conceded that they had committed serious breaches of the salary cap, via a dual contract and bookkeeping system, which left National Rugby League in Australia oblivious to £1.8 million in outside payments to players. The upshot? The loss of the two Premierships that they had won in 2007 and 2009. With relegation not an option in NRL, the Storm were also compelled to play an entire campaign without the chance to score points.
For now, Saracens hold on to the two domestic crowns they secured during their period of cap-busting, not because their transgressions were of any lesser magnitude than the Storm’s, but because the Premiership lacks the capacity to take them away. It is an impotence that irks Darren Childs, the Premiership’s CEO, who said this week: “I was surprised we don’t have the power to do that, but we don’t. We have to deal with it on that basis, but looking at the future regulations, it is absolutely top of the agenda.”
It is a wonder that rival clubs, where livelihoods have been damaged by Saracens’ largesse, are not demanding an extraordinary general meeting to change the statutes. As owner of Exeter, Tony Rowe has watched his club lose the past two Premiership finals at the hands of Saracens, whom he insists should now be denuded of that silverware. His is hardly an outlandish view. Knowing what we do now about the reigning champions’ creative accounting, their last two titles are irredeemably tarnished. The spectacle of their championship kit being flogged from the club shop at knockdown prices tells you as much.
Rugby needs not merely to penalise Saracens for dragging the game into disrepute. It needs formally to disown the achievements that arose from their manipulative, off-the-book deals. Beyond this, it should also examine the loopholes that allowed Nigel Wray, the club’s departed chairman, to enter into private financial arrangements with the players. And what about the role of players’ agents in signing off on all this? There is a sense already that Saracens feel that they are not the only club culpable. Only by all clubs opening their books will we know whether or not rugby has a deep-rooted cultural issue here.
For the moment, forget the fatuous thesis that Saracens were just too good on the field, or that they could have beaten the All Blacks on their day, never mind Exeter. They acquired such quality, in large part, by their contempt for the salary cap, which they disguised in cute ways that suggested they knew exactly what they were doing. Slice it however you like, this is cheating, and the sport must disavow not just the act itself, but the proceeds from it.
Saracens’ advocates, who maintain that the club have flourished solely by their devotion to “humility” and “work rate”, are resorting to ever more desperate defences. They point out how the club has upheld far more progressive attitudes than most to mental health and concussion protocols. Well, Lance Armstrong raised millions for his cancer charity, but that did not bring exoneration from his status as a weapons-grade cheat. And when cycling’s global governing body acted, very belatedly, against him, they struck each of his seven Tour de France titles from the record. Some taints are too deep to erase.
It is only bureaucratic detail that is preventing the Premiership from taking similar action against Saracens. Childs would clearly like to have the option of invalidating their titles on the table, but a quirk of the rules means he cannot invoke it retrospectively. But only with such a severe step can rugby demonstrate that it has wiped the slate clean. All that Saracens accomplished between 2016 and 2019 does not just come with an asterisk: it is, thanks to their assembling of a squad at a far greater expense than the rules permitted, null and void. Rugby league showed the way by expunging the Storm’s feats altogether. Now union must follow suit with Saracens, if it is ever to deter similar misdeeds in future, or to defuse the poisonous rancour that this saga has unleashed
Always a Wasp
