- Joined
- Apr 12, 2011
- Messages
- 8,538
- Club or Nation
Andrew Rogers RFU Salary Cap Regs Mgr Speaks
Posted by: ToryBoy (IP Logged)
Date: 29 March, 2012 20:22
Published on Wednesday 28 March 2012 Chronicle and Echo Northampton.
The salary cap. It has been a source of rumours and suspicion ever since it was introduced into rugby.
Supporters were again calling into question whether a club was sticking to it when Chris Ashton announced he was signing for Saracens in January. How can the Watford-based club manage to fit so many internationals into their squad? It has been a common complaint over the years and not just from fans.
Former Saints chairman Keith Barwell has raised his suspicions in the past, while former Wasps owner Steve Hayes also came out and questioned how some clubs manage to pack so many internationals into their squads. Indeed Barwell didn’t see it being much different to ‘shamateurism’ as he called it, when clubs often paid supposed amateurs on the sly, or gave them cars and such gifts.
Well, salary cap and regulations manager Andrew Rogers is here to assure everybody that he is on the case.
Rogers has been in place for more than a year now, and is determined to catch any club that is working outside the rules.
It’s his job after all.
You may wonder why he has only been around for a year as the salary cap has been in place since the 1990s. At least now the Premiership clubs are taking the policing of the cap seriously.
So is it a sham? Can clubs boost a player’s wage package by giving them a house, a car or a holiday?
Well, no, not according to the regulations.
If they did give the player a car, that would be part of the £4m.
“It is about catching the transfer value from the club to the player,†says Rogers. “We look at money coming from anything in relation to the club and connected parties; employment funds, shareholders, family members, sponsors and trusts.
“And at the other end, the player and his connected parties; agents, family, trusts, anything.
“And it includes any benefits; a house, car, money to wife, image rights, most things. It is easier to say what is excluded. That is any money a player gets from international representative matches and there is an education allowance of up to £5,000, so a club can pay for a player to go to university or become a carpenter. That is not included in the salary cap.â€
So basically, anything the club gives to the player is included in the salary cap. But how does Rogers police all that?
“The club will provide us in September with two bits of information,†says Rogers. “What they have spent in the previous season, signed off by the club chairman, the CEO and finance director. They also provide a projection of the coming year of what they are planning to spend.
“We also have a firm of accountants who do a forensic audit on each club, they spend a few days at each club and do that from October through to December.
“I do a number of checks on the club. I am in a constant process of intelligence building throughout the year. I can investigate any arrangement that I don’t think is quite right, any contract that I think is wrong.
“I could turn up to a club today and ask to speak to a number of players and they would have to oblige. That is part of the regulations of the salary cap and there is a clause in each player’s contract that they have to support the salary cap as well.
“I see players all the time. They are quite happy to see me, but we have no problem with a club official joining us, though it is not an interrogation. It is a conversation and an education for the player to understand how it works. You have to help them comply, it is not about cracking the whip all the time.
“I can investigate anything I want, so I can get clubs to provide me with the different deals they have with sponsors or commercial arrangements with third parties.
“Also, within 28 days of a contract being signed a copy comes to me.â€
So Rogers is the only person outside the interested parties who actually knows what Ashton will be paid by Saracens. Reports have suggested anything between £250,000 to £300,000. In fact, Rogers knows what every player earns per year.
If rugby modelled itself on the NFL’s salary cap system then we would all know. In the NFL, each club publishes what their whole squad is on. It is the sort of transparency that Rogers is pushing for.
“They publish the wages of each player, so it takes away any question,†says Rogers. “It creates more parity as everybody has got to be down the line on it. If any club was lying they would be found out pretty quickly if the published figure was significantly lower than the market value of the player and the player would ask; why are you putting that figure there?
“Culturally I don’t think we are ready for that, here what people earn is kept very quiet.â€
Indeed, transparency is at the other end of the scale in the Premiership. Rogers reveals some clubs have breached the salary cap in the past and received fines, but he can’t reveal who or how much they were fined.
“There have been administrative breaches, not deliberate attempts to breach the cap,†says Rogers.
Rogers does reveal that the regulations mean a club is fined £3 for every £1 it is over the cap and since 2009/10 clubs can be points deducted as well, with a sliding scale going up to 20.
It all sounds like a job for Hercule Poirot, but Rogers has no detective background, instead coming from the RFU.
“I worked with the RFU for a number of years as a regulations manager,†says Rogers. “Sports regulation and sports law is my background.
“Because I have been in the sport for a long time I have a lot of relationships already in place. Clubs and people will tell you things, agents will tell you things, disgruntled players tell you things.â€
Rumours of club’s using sponsors’ books to pay wages or offshore bank accounts fly around all the time. Rogers hears the same rumours, but nobody has been deducted points yet. Does that mean every club is abiding by the salary cap? Rogers is careful not to give a definitive answer.
“We have made massive strides in relation to the salary cap and the systems we put in place we believe are pretty good,†says Rogers. “I am confident we would discover failures. The consequences of a club breaching the salary cap are so serious. We have the points deduction now.
“You are basically suggesting that the CEO, finance director and chairman are liars and cheats. You are saying somebody of significant status in the sport is a cheat. The finance director is a professional in terms of his accountancy and it would affect their reputation.
“There has been a concerted effort by Premiership rugby and the clubs to take the policing of the salary cap extremely seriously and the recruitment of me shows that.
“Before they had a law firm and a firm of accountants.
“A law firm who is involved in the sport won’t have the time to keep tapping into aspects of it and building relationships.
“I have the support of a salary cap sub-committee, which is made up of representatives of the clubs, who develop the regulations and a firm of accountants who do the forensic audit.
“It is in a far stronger position than it has ever been and we have a five-year window in relation to catching people, I can have suspicions now and wait for a couple of years until I have got the proof and the action would be in real time rather than historical.â€
Rogers warns: “If you think you have got away with it today, it is not the case.â€
Hearing rumours and whispers is one thing, finding evidence is another. Rogers went to Australia to find out how the biggest salary cap breach in NRL history was discovered.
In 2010 Melbourne Storm was stripped of two Premiership ***les and a World Club ***le and fined $1.869m after it had breached the salary cap by $3.78m over five years.
http://www.rugbynetwork.net/boards/read/s96.htm?98,13168969
Posted by: ToryBoy (IP Logged)
Date: 29 March, 2012 20:22
Published on Wednesday 28 March 2012 Chronicle and Echo Northampton.
The salary cap. It has been a source of rumours and suspicion ever since it was introduced into rugby.
Supporters were again calling into question whether a club was sticking to it when Chris Ashton announced he was signing for Saracens in January. How can the Watford-based club manage to fit so many internationals into their squad? It has been a common complaint over the years and not just from fans.
Former Saints chairman Keith Barwell has raised his suspicions in the past, while former Wasps owner Steve Hayes also came out and questioned how some clubs manage to pack so many internationals into their squads. Indeed Barwell didn’t see it being much different to ‘shamateurism’ as he called it, when clubs often paid supposed amateurs on the sly, or gave them cars and such gifts.
Well, salary cap and regulations manager Andrew Rogers is here to assure everybody that he is on the case.
Rogers has been in place for more than a year now, and is determined to catch any club that is working outside the rules.
It’s his job after all.
You may wonder why he has only been around for a year as the salary cap has been in place since the 1990s. At least now the Premiership clubs are taking the policing of the cap seriously.
So is it a sham? Can clubs boost a player’s wage package by giving them a house, a car or a holiday?
Well, no, not according to the regulations.
If they did give the player a car, that would be part of the £4m.
“It is about catching the transfer value from the club to the player,†says Rogers. “We look at money coming from anything in relation to the club and connected parties; employment funds, shareholders, family members, sponsors and trusts.
“And at the other end, the player and his connected parties; agents, family, trusts, anything.
“And it includes any benefits; a house, car, money to wife, image rights, most things. It is easier to say what is excluded. That is any money a player gets from international representative matches and there is an education allowance of up to £5,000, so a club can pay for a player to go to university or become a carpenter. That is not included in the salary cap.â€
So basically, anything the club gives to the player is included in the salary cap. But how does Rogers police all that?
“The club will provide us in September with two bits of information,†says Rogers. “What they have spent in the previous season, signed off by the club chairman, the CEO and finance director. They also provide a projection of the coming year of what they are planning to spend.
“We also have a firm of accountants who do a forensic audit on each club, they spend a few days at each club and do that from October through to December.
“I do a number of checks on the club. I am in a constant process of intelligence building throughout the year. I can investigate any arrangement that I don’t think is quite right, any contract that I think is wrong.
“I could turn up to a club today and ask to speak to a number of players and they would have to oblige. That is part of the regulations of the salary cap and there is a clause in each player’s contract that they have to support the salary cap as well.
“I see players all the time. They are quite happy to see me, but we have no problem with a club official joining us, though it is not an interrogation. It is a conversation and an education for the player to understand how it works. You have to help them comply, it is not about cracking the whip all the time.
“I can investigate anything I want, so I can get clubs to provide me with the different deals they have with sponsors or commercial arrangements with third parties.
“Also, within 28 days of a contract being signed a copy comes to me.â€
So Rogers is the only person outside the interested parties who actually knows what Ashton will be paid by Saracens. Reports have suggested anything between £250,000 to £300,000. In fact, Rogers knows what every player earns per year.
If rugby modelled itself on the NFL’s salary cap system then we would all know. In the NFL, each club publishes what their whole squad is on. It is the sort of transparency that Rogers is pushing for.
“They publish the wages of each player, so it takes away any question,†says Rogers. “It creates more parity as everybody has got to be down the line on it. If any club was lying they would be found out pretty quickly if the published figure was significantly lower than the market value of the player and the player would ask; why are you putting that figure there?
“Culturally I don’t think we are ready for that, here what people earn is kept very quiet.â€
Indeed, transparency is at the other end of the scale in the Premiership. Rogers reveals some clubs have breached the salary cap in the past and received fines, but he can’t reveal who or how much they were fined.
“There have been administrative breaches, not deliberate attempts to breach the cap,†says Rogers.
Rogers does reveal that the regulations mean a club is fined £3 for every £1 it is over the cap and since 2009/10 clubs can be points deducted as well, with a sliding scale going up to 20.
It all sounds like a job for Hercule Poirot, but Rogers has no detective background, instead coming from the RFU.
“I worked with the RFU for a number of years as a regulations manager,†says Rogers. “Sports regulation and sports law is my background.
“Because I have been in the sport for a long time I have a lot of relationships already in place. Clubs and people will tell you things, agents will tell you things, disgruntled players tell you things.â€
Rumours of club’s using sponsors’ books to pay wages or offshore bank accounts fly around all the time. Rogers hears the same rumours, but nobody has been deducted points yet. Does that mean every club is abiding by the salary cap? Rogers is careful not to give a definitive answer.
“We have made massive strides in relation to the salary cap and the systems we put in place we believe are pretty good,†says Rogers. “I am confident we would discover failures. The consequences of a club breaching the salary cap are so serious. We have the points deduction now.
“You are basically suggesting that the CEO, finance director and chairman are liars and cheats. You are saying somebody of significant status in the sport is a cheat. The finance director is a professional in terms of his accountancy and it would affect their reputation.
“There has been a concerted effort by Premiership rugby and the clubs to take the policing of the salary cap extremely seriously and the recruitment of me shows that.
“Before they had a law firm and a firm of accountants.
“A law firm who is involved in the sport won’t have the time to keep tapping into aspects of it and building relationships.
“I have the support of a salary cap sub-committee, which is made up of representatives of the clubs, who develop the regulations and a firm of accountants who do the forensic audit.
“It is in a far stronger position than it has ever been and we have a five-year window in relation to catching people, I can have suspicions now and wait for a couple of years until I have got the proof and the action would be in real time rather than historical.â€
Rogers warns: “If you think you have got away with it today, it is not the case.â€
Hearing rumours and whispers is one thing, finding evidence is another. Rogers went to Australia to find out how the biggest salary cap breach in NRL history was discovered.
In 2010 Melbourne Storm was stripped of two Premiership ***les and a World Club ***le and fined $1.869m after it had breached the salary cap by $3.78m over five years.
http://www.rugbynetwork.net/boards/read/s96.htm?98,13168969
