Can we start to trust Saracens again?
owen slot, chief rugby correspondent
If there was a sense of denial at Saracens for the past two months, it is now over. If rugby followers were searching for a reason to believe that the English champions may fall into line, they have it.
This is an extraordinary development in the salary-cap scandal that has dogged English rugby from the day that England returned from the World Cup two months ago. It is particularly extraordinary because of the identity of the man who delivered it. Edward Griffiths is not the most likely of saviours in the circumstances, but more on that later.
For now, the point is that Griffiths, the interim chief executive, has executed a most significant about-turn in the management of the club. He has acknowledged unequivocally that Saracens are over the salary cap this season — yes, right now, this season — and that he needs to bring them into line immediately.
We can’t tell yet what or how much needs to be done. The most extreme solution is players having to leave the club — yet that appears highly likely to happen. Even Griffiths says that he doesn’t know how much needs to be done because he started work only last Thursday and hasn’t yet got to the bottom of the network of financial arrangements in place.
However, the message and the tone of it is completely different to what has gone before.
It was on November 5 that Premiership Rugby made its shock announcement that Saracens had been guilty of breaching the salary cap over the previous three seasons and that they would be hit with a 35-point deduction and £5.4 million fine. The fine was the highest inflicted on a team in a professional sport anywhere in the world.
The response from Saracens, thereafter, was that they had been harshly treated. On a statement on November 5, the club said it was “shocked and disappointed” and would launch an appeal.
The questions that immediately needed answering were: if Saracens were over the salary cap for the previous three seasons, what about this season? Were they playing with an illegal squad again? Would the club be forced to sell players? “No” was the answer in the statement. “The club allocates a set budget for player remuneration. This budget falls within the salary cap.”
Thirteen days later, Saracens released a statement announcing that, actually, they were not going to appeal against the judgment. In that statement Nigel Wray, the chairman, said: “We can confirm that we are complying strictly with the salary-cap regulations in the current season.”
Just to make things clear, there was also a Q&A. To the question: “Is the club now in compliance with the salary cap?” The given answer was: “Yes. Under Premier Rugby regulations we are.”
The answer yesterday, from Griffiths, could hardly have been more different. He said that “mistakes have been made”, that what the club required was a “restructuring and recalculation for the current season” and “there is a situation here that needs to be dealt with, and we will deal with it. It is an easy thing to say — we are going to be compliant — but it requires actions to underpin those words pretty quickly. You need to back up words with actions.”
In short, Griffiths’s job is to bring the wage bill down immediately. It is inaccurate to say that this Saracens team is in breach of the cap because a club is only in breach if, at the end of the season, they have spent more than the £7 million limit. What Griffiths has found is that if Saracens’ wage bill remains in place, they will finish the season over the cap. He therefore needs to cut the wage bill. In his words, this is a two-phase job: “Identifying the solution, then implementing it.”
There are a number of ways to cut a wage bill. A player could end his contract at Saracens and take one up at another club — there has been no shortage of interest from outside. A player’s registration could be moved to a Championship club — that is like a loan agreement. A player approaching retirement from the game at the end of the season could be offered the opportunity to take that retirement instantly — immediately his wage for the rest of the season would come off the books.
Watching Saracens over the coming weeks will therefore be fascinating. Do not expect a sudden, dramatic exodus; more likely are one or two departures and some smart trimming where possible. What we can expect, though, according to Griffiths, are demonstrative signs of a changed club. Just recently, this was a club saying: “Nothing to see here.” Now Saracens will be courting trust and building bridges.
“This process needs to be successful on two levels,” Griffiths said. “It needs to be successful on the spreadsheet and with the calculator and it also needs to be successful with public perception and in the perception of the clubs against whom we play week in, week out.”
Can Griffiths really win back the trust of the rest of the league? He is, indeed, the least likely of saviours. As we reported in these pages on Friday, Saracens have “reappointed the man who led them into their first salary-cap scandal six years ago”.
The previous time Saracens were investigated for breaching the cap was for the 2013-14 season when he was previously chief executive.
That case was killed off only when Saracens reached a financial settlement with the other clubs.
It therefore took considerable gall to reappoint Griffiths last week. Why should we trust him this time?
This is his answer: “Premiership Rugby in the first half of the decade just passed and Premiership Rugby in 2020 are very different situations. My personal view, back in 2014-15, was that the salary cap was essentially a salary cap in name only and there were a significant number of clubs that were stretching the regulations. At that time there was an element of honesty among thieves.”
So was he just playing the same game as everyone else? “I don’t say everyone else,” he clarifies. “And I don’t say it is about me personally. At the time, there was a salary cap that was artificially low and loosely applied and that was an approach taken by several clubs.”
That is the history. Griffiths asks for a clean slate, a fresh start. He will get it here. Different decade, different status quo, different skills required.
No one else has yet been so honest about the past. No one else has pledged to administer change. No one else has given such hope that we may believe in the English champions again.
Always a Wasp