WRW: GET REAL
Leicester's salary cap issues are far from over
“I knew as a player how to cheat, and cheat well,” John Wells once said. “Referees in the Premiership don't let players learn those arts.”
At times like this, the quote springs to mind.
The confirmation of everything we already knew about Leicester’s breach of the salary cap is the financial equivalent of the openside flanker, permanently offside, a real nuisance and yet we can infer from this statement, quietly tolerated.
Some pass it off as harmless. But when the laws are broken consistently, it will ruin a game. This is quietly devastating.
For those in Leicester who read this blog, this is going to make uncomfortable reading. It’s time to remove the eye-patch.
WHAT HAS BEEN DISCOVERED?
While Saracens breached the cap in three seasons, Leicester have breached the regulations in all five seasons the salary cap manager was able to investigate - with salary cap breaches discovered in four of them.
The fifth - 2020/21 - oddly found Leicester were guilty merely of non-disclosure.
If, as some have suggested, you might think this is all a misunderstanding about what was permissible and what wasn’t.
I have two words in response.
Get real.
Given the numbers involved, you also might be wondering what difference these amounts £55,000 might make.
Sure, £55,000 is not enough to bring in Beauden Barritt, but agents will tell you that 50k is enough to keep a player, especially when you think it could cost a player £10-20,000 to move his family overseas.
If this were any other club, would you really say this was a misunderstanding?
HOW DID IT HAPPEN AND WHO AUTHORISED IT?
Very simple, really.
A number of club sponsors would put money into third-party company bank accounts and then be compensated by the club through their commercial contracts.
Sources have identified to WRW that employees at Levy UK, the club’s caterers and an arm of the Compass Group, were involved. There are other companies involved too.
The more seasons this took place in, the less easy it is to argue this was a misunderstanding.
What did they know and when did they know it?
This has come up before and it needs to be spelled out again.
Too many people assume that Simon Cohen is the devil incarnate and solely responsible for this. The club strategy was along those lines.
The former chief executive was the wrong choice for the wrong position - little charisma in front of the media, little commercial background but useful in dealing with contracts, given his former roles as Head of Rugby Operations and as England players’ agent.
Blaming Cohen alone fundamentally misunderstands how the club operates and allows those in charge to avoid answering difficult questions.
The Chairman has to sign off each salary cap declaration every year, along with the CEO and Finance Director.
One former official who saw both Cohen and Peter Tom at close range, told me:
“I can categorically say Peter Tom is fully aware of every major financial decision and implication to the club. I have no reason to believe that wasn’t the case prior to my arrival. Club staff will need serious convincing, if he says he knew nothing about this.”
Crucially, it is suggested that similar third-party company schemes existed before Simon Cohen arrived at the club. Bear in mind, he arrived as Head of Rugby Operations as far back as the mid-2000s.
If that is correct, it begs the very obvious questions of who came up with the idea, just how long Leicester have been using third-party companies and whether anything untoward went on.
And whether a longer external look is required to get to the bottom of it.
WHY DOES ALL OF THIS MATTER?
Rugby ponders often why more people aren’t attracted to it.
Yes it’s a complicated sport, but so was kabaddi and look how popular that was on Channel 4 back in the day? It may have serious issues with concussion - not helped in recent days - but the NFL is worse.
But finance-wise, it is in unsurpassed in its ability to talk with two faces simultaneously. Rugby Union is obsessed about money but it never talks about it.
It’s never been the game for the common man, ever since broken time payments were refused, no matter how much we go on that it’s a game for all shapes and sizes.
Then we banned players sine die who went and played rugby league, when boot money and fiddling expenses was all the rage.
Then it was all about semi-professionalism and who was full-time and who wasn’t.
Now, we are at a stage when we can’t be sure what deals are being done and with whom.
For all of the sportswashing of the Premier League, if you pay money under the counter to footballers, there are clear rules in place and they are enforced. Ask Chesterfield.
In rugby, we keep quiet.
Rugby BADLY needs to clean up its act
This is not about Leicester in particular. But for professional sport to continue to have relevance, it needs to be on the level.
While Leicester co-operated fully once the breach of regulations came to light, the end result is all too convenient for all concerned. Big fine but no hearing, no detailed evidence, don’t look backwards - we move on. But should we?
For this to come so soon after the fall of Saracens - and to receive such a sharply different fate - is not to be shaken off.
I fear we are now starting to see a culture of tolerance for breaches of the salary cap. For the issues to be raised again - and to be exposed in the final week of the Six Nations and only the barest of information made available - is very revealing. How many more clubs are playing fast and loose?
While Saracens were being condemned by their peers, Leicester sat there quietly hoping no-one would notice what they were doing. That is the most shaming fact of this whole cynical business.
Unless professional rugby drops the old pals act it laughably calls a governance system, we will always wonder what is being done in its name - and, now with extra justification.
No matter how talented the rulebreaking is, it’s still breaking the rules.
First of all the things I agree with:
It is wishful thinking from any Tigers fans that are hoping that Simon Cohen carried out the scheme on his own and without the knowledge of anyone else. Also that it is wishful thinking to think it was just a misunderstanding. However, I think it’s fair that some people choose to think wishfully and I don’t consider that this blog provides strong evidence against that, it does put an argument very well and strongly that there are other explanations.
I agree that the most shaming fact for Leicester is that we stood by during the shaming of Saracens when we had our own scheme that at least one \ some people must have been wondering if were a problem. Even if it had been a misunderstanding prior to that, and I think that is possible given the in depth debate Saracens had with the salary cap manager and as part of their appeals highlighted during the Dyson report. What Leicester have admitted to seems similar to the MBN events appearances. (https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jan/23/dyson-report-saracens-salary-cap-breaches-deal-by-deal)
I also agree that that the announcement timing is very convenient for Premier Rugby coming in a Premiership cup week and during the end of the six nations.
I also agree that it would be better for the sport if all the details were out in the open. This would also help other clubs to know if anything they have done was within the rules. I personally would very much like to know who was involved in terms of which players and which staff \ decision makers.
Things I strongly disagree with.
1) The ‘Get Real’ comment and general tone of antagonism towards Tigers fans who I assume you think are being naïve or complicit. The one think I think all fans of all clubs agreed with regarding Saracens was that whatever Wray and the club had done, the fans were innocent. That is clearly true and even more so for Leicester where there isn’t a period of success and signings of big money players to explain away.
2) ‘The more seasons this took place in, the less easy it is to argue this was a misunderstanding’. Sorry but that’s nonsense. If it is a misunderstanding of what’s included as salary then it makes perfect sense that you would do that every year, if your understanding is that something isn’t salary and the Prem rugby interpretation is that it is, then that is a misunderstanding \ a difference in perception. One option clearly is that it was a misunderstanding.
3) “The fifth - 2020/21 - oddly found Leicester were guilty merely of non-disclosure.” I don’t see what’s odd about this, it seems to perfectly fit with several of the possible explanations. Firstly if the payments were to do with events \ catering then the stadium being closed due to covid would explain that. Secondly, it could be that following the Dyson report more people within the club became aware or the club for the first time became aware that it was possibly against the rules and stopped the practice.
4) I don’t understand the points relating to the punishment at all. Leicester have been given exactly the punishments that are in place for going over the salary cap within the over run amount. As Wasps and Quins were previously.
5) To be clear on the Chesterfield comparison. Are you accusing Tigers of breaking the law rather than just the salary cap?
On a more minor note:
1) Is NFL worse for concussion than Rugby? They have an extremely long off season.
Another great article Chris, and an obviously important one as it's the same subject (other than the quick dit re Nadolo at Birstall) all the way through. This stinks. I get that it's not on the industrial scale of Saracens, but it's cheating. Adam called it, how fortunate that each of the years looked at we were below the run-off. Luck, or deliberate? I really don't know the answer to that question but I have suspicions. Pleased to see the Club no longer rolling out the 'previous regime' were responsible, given 3 Officer's at the Club today were there during these years. I wonder what they'd have found if they could have gone back more than 5 years. Finally, the statement from current CEO "we not there was no breach in recent seasons" which is disingenuous at best, the Image Rights company was wound up almost when the Saracens punishments became mandatory and it's hard to do something when what you were using to do it is no longer in existence.
Seriously unimpressed as a long standing fan.