Thibaud to Toulouse?

[Vespula Vulgaris]

I'll be sad to see him go, but TV3 played extremely well recently and so we aren't dangerously short of options.

[Davidabricot]

Hi guys, to answer some of your questions. If he stays at Wasps, he can play for the French team (no rule in France about the player's location). He has a huge weakness, he is not a 'JIFF' which means Joueur Issu de la Formation Française (player from a French academy). To be a JIFF, you don't have to be French, you just have to be playing in a French years for some years during your teenagehood.
Year after year, the French federation increases the JIFF number which has to be align both in the squad and on the field for each game. Hence, JIFF players are like gold. This is for example a reason why Toulon didn't make effort to keep Halfpenny, why Castres not sign again Spedding, or why Castres sold Mafi.
Why would Toulouse hire a French non-JIFF player who just play sometimes in Premiership?? They can have almost who they want. The play philosophy is far different. OK, Toulouse is the most English-like club, trying to play fast with a lot of balls coming to the wings. Nevertheless, this remains top14, the game where players only play rucks, scrums and 10000 TMO/match. Not really the profile for a young and dynamic player.

Finally, the info comes from the 'Midol' (shortname for Midi Olympique) which is a rugby tabloïd. They release 2 editions/week, so they have to find any rumour with buzz-titles. Actually this is just a rumour. Let's see if this will be true.

[Marlow Nick]

And unfortunately we cannot upgrade him from Academy to Fisrt Team Squad midseason. It is our misfortune that he is good. Actually would think he could be close to being in contention in the Player of the Year awards.

Why not?

Sounds like he wants to go for good reasons but I'm not sure of any rule stopping Wasps from trying to persuade him to stay. We are allegedly well under the cap so technically we could upgrade his contract, pay him more and move him into the senior squad. Or am I missing a rule that prevents this?

[RogerE]

We are allegedly well under the cap

According to the CEO at the last fan's forum we, like almost all other Premiership clubs, are close to the cap. So don't know how much leeway we actually have.

[wasps]

Regarding the perceived disparity between salary expenditure and quality of squad, it's with realising that we have a far bigger squad this year than in previous ones.
In fact, it may be the largest squad I can remember us having.

This extra squad numbers are what saw us survive when we were severely struggling with injuries and were required to play players like Tibo, Theo, Owlett, Wusty and probably some others.

While Tibo may be on under £30k the others aren't and the numbers alone will naturally increase our outgoings without necessarily improving the quality of our best 23

[Chunky24]

We are allegedly well under the cap

According to the CEO at the last fan's forum we, like almost all other Premiership clubs, are close to the cap. So don't know how much leeway we actually have.

I thought the other interesting point he made was about the salary cap being 7 million basic then increased by various academy, eqp, international etc. credits. That means that a club could be just under the cap one season and with no change in players and salaries be either well under or over depending on change in credits e.g. play more eqp players (can see clubs doing that this year with no relegation to accumulate credits) or less players get picked internationally so leading to changes needing to be made with either room to bring in players or needing to release players.

[RogerE]

We are allegedly well under the cap

According to the CEO at the last fan's forum we, like almost all other Premiership clubs, are close to the cap. So don't know how much leeway we actually have.

I thought the other interesting point he made was about the salary cap being 7 million basic then increased by various academy, eqp, international etc. credits. That means that a club could be just under the cap one season and with no change in players and salaries be either well under or over depending on change in credits e.g. play more eqp players (can see clubs doing that this year with no relegation to accumulate credits) or less players get picked internationally so leading to changes needing to be made with either room to bring in players or needing to release players.

Which is what happened to us a couple of seasons ago when all of a sudden Haskell wasn't picked for the internationals, and we got fined.

[wasps]

Although it doesn't matter much, I believe the base is actually £6.4m.
The home grown (presumably academy) credits take it up to a max of £7m.

But the principal that England selection can have a significant effect is definitely true.




Interestingly, for international credits, you get £5k per match missed if they're in the senior EPS. £10k if they're not.

So Saracens, with 7 England players who probably miss around 6 matches each season, and a few non English internationals who also play during the league season, they probably get £500k additional allowance per year (quick rough estimate)


But even more interestingly, the salary cap rules for this year state that it's only premiership, champions and challenge cup games that accrue the allowance - no mention of the 2nd tier league.
Unless that is changed, it suggests that Saracens won't get that £500k next year even if their players are playing for England

[Raggs]

There is no cap in the championship. However they have to be within cap to make the premiership, and then I guess prem rules apply for the check, in which case they'll get the credits.

[wasps]

There is no cap in the championship. However they have to be within cap to make the premiership, and then I guess prem rules apply for the check, in which case they'll get the credits.

(b) Senior EPS and International Player Credits
1. Where a Club is unable to select a Player in its squad for either an Gallagher
Premiership or European Champions or Challenge Cup match as a result of that
Player (i) being selected in a match day squad by his national union and released
in accordance with World Rugby Regulation 9 or (ii) are absent under the terms of
the Heads of Agreement (or any successor of this agreement) (which includes EPS
Rest and Blocked weeks as defined in the Professional Game Agreement (or any
successor of this agreement) or (iii) released in accordance with any relevant PRL
Board Policy, and subject to Regulation 3.2(b)4 below, there shall be:
A. For any International Qualified Player, who is not a Senior EPS Player, a £10,000
per Gallagher Premiership or European Champions or Challenge Cup match
credit (“International Variable Player Credit”)

For avoidance of doubt, an England Player who is not a Senior EPS Player may
qualify for an International Variable Player Credit if his Club is unable to select
the Player pursuant to Regulation 3.2(b)1. above.
B. For any International Qualified Player, who is a Senior EPS Player, a £5,000 per
Gallagher Premiership or European Champions or Challenge Cup match credit
(“Senior EPS Player Variable Credit”);

They seem quite clear in naming which competitions the payments accrue for.

The IPA championship is not listed.


They'll still get the £40k per EPS player, so I suspect that the allowance they lose out on is quite a bit less than £500k. Probably nearer £250-300k
But that's still the salary of a very good player

[Marlow Nick]

As I understand it they don't have to comply with the cap in the championship they just have to submit a cap report. Fior example they might submit a report saying they had spent £7m compared to the cap limit of £6.4m because the didn't qualify for credits and the SCM might consider that reasonable because they could expect significant credits once promoted. The reverse scenario being that they submit a report saying they only spent £5m because they had 10 players out on loan to which the SCM might raise a concern about how they could be within the cap when the players return

[HDAWG]

When we said we were close to the cap, I brought this up on here and apparently that could actually mean anything.

I believe suggests that we're close to the cap are rubbish, looking at our squad I don't think we're anywhere near the maximum possible salaries.

[andermt]

When we said we were close to the cap, I brought this up on here and apparently that could actually mean anything.

I believe suggests that we're close to the cap are rubbish, looking at our squad I don't think we're anywhere near the maximum possible salaries.

As has been said above, the comment that we were close to the cap apparently came from the Wasps CEO at a recent supporters forum.

So I guess it is down to who you believe.

[Marlow Nick]

When we said we were close to the cap, I brought this up on here and apparently that could actually mean anything.

I believe suggests that we're close to the cap are rubbish, looking at our squad I don't think we're anywhere near the maximum possible salaries.

As has been said above, the comment that we were close to the cap apparently came from the Wasps CEO at a recent supporters forum.

So I guess it is down to who you believe.

That could mean such a wide range. For example perhaps we are paying £6.0m which is "close to" the £6.4m base cap

[Neils]

As expected this is in today's TRP but is just a lift from the French article.  Only news involving Wasps.