The Legitimacy of the Cap
May 1st 2010 12:56
The Legitimacy of the Cap
A lot has been said about the Melbourne Storm over the past week in regards to their Salary Cap breaches and the resulting penalty imposed upon them by the NRL. Almost five years of Premiership success has been stripped away from the Storm as the club tries to rebuild from this scandal.
Despite all the attention on the Storm though, little has been said of the Salary Cap itself. What role does the structure of the Cap have in this whole issue? Obviously the Melbourne Storm are to blame for the rorts in which they contrived. But in essence, this issue comes back to the structure of the Salary Cap itself.
Surely, some criticism must be placed on the institution of the Salary Cap system for allowing these rorts to be facilitated in the first place. To look at this issue in simple terms, the events of the past week, along with previous rorts, would never have been scandalous had the Salary Cap not be in force.
In the aftermath of this scandal breaking, Alan Jones of radio 2GB debated the legitimacy of the Cap. In basic terms, Jones argued that having the Cap only exposed the game to rorting and blatant breaches. Furthermore, in his view, Salary Cap rorting was abundant throughout the League and he stated with certainty that it was in practice at other clubs.
What he proposed was intriguing however. Instead of having a Salary Cap, Jones proposed a system of player rankings to replace it. The fundamental element of his proposal was that each player would be bestowed a ranking. For example, a player of Johnathan Thurston’s calibre; that is someone who has represented their Country, played State of Origin and who is considered one of the best players in the game, would receive a ranking of 20.
A player who has played State of Origin, but who has not represented Australia would receive a rank of 15. A top flight NRL player, but who has not played representative football would be ranked 10, while a rookie in his first season may be a 2. As a built-in incentive, a player who has played at the one club for ten years or more, such as Darren Lockyer or Steve Price, would receive a ranking of zero.
Collectively, each team would have a set total of points by which they could accommodate their players, which for arguments sake might be a figure such as 200.
On face value, this system would solve a lot of problems for the League right now. The greatest advantage would be that individual clubs could no longer rort the system as they have done under the Salary Cap. Moreover, as the rankings of players constituted whether or not they could play for a certain team, the payments of players would not be under scrutiny.
In the case of Johnathan Thurston, provided that the North Queensland Cowboys could keep his ranking within their allocated points, they could pay him whatever they pleased. This would stifle talk of Thurston chasing money by looking to move to other codes such as Rugby and AFL. Indeed this would also apply to all players and would grant Rugby League more bargaining power when having to compete with the war chests of other codes.
The amount of players that Rugby League has lost to either English Super League or other football codes, coupled with the amount that we will lose in the future is astounding. Right now there is even talk that Israel Folau may switch to the new Melbourne Rebels Rugby Super 15 franchise or even to the new Greater Western AFL team. If the Salary Cap were to be removed, Rugby League would have a much better chance at retaining their marque stars.
With all ideas however, there is always a draw back. The only one that I can determine is that with the abolition of the Salary Cap in preference to a ranking system, the payments to players could skyrocket to unsustainable levels. Indeed, one advantage of introducing the Salary Cap was that clubs with low income streams could not spend money that they did not have.
Obviously the temptation to splurge in an effort to attract the best type of players could place some clubs behind the eight-ball. Therefore, some sort of Salary Cap would still need to be in place. But this would be a figure that is far and beyond that of which exists now and only have the intention of keeping player payments sustainable.
In terms of rorting, the likelihood of it happening would be far reduced, but not eliminated altogether. Obviously the case might arise where the League’s governing body may favour particular clubs by keeping their players’ rankings low, while raising those of players at other clubs. However, that seems unlikely due to the transparency of the scheme.
Another issue that may cause concern is formulating an adequate system of ranking players. Obviously on face value, a player such as Benji Marshall would receive a high ranking. But then how could you effectively compare Marshall’s ranking to a player such as Gareth Ellis? Obviously Marshall provides the Wests Tigers with more marque value and is viewed as much more of a superstar. But is what he contributes to the team any greater than the contribution of Ellis?
The issue is; how can you sufficiently determine the unique importance of players such as Marshall and Ellis. By nature the two play in vastly different positions and contribute quite differently to each other, but are both valuable nonetheless. The same could be said of Petero Civoniceva, who contributes greatly to the Panthers. But how would you rank his contributions in contrast to other Panthers such as Michael Jennings or Luke Lewis?
The most important point in all of this is the contribution of the current Salary Cap system upon the game. The structure of the Cap has caused the competition to become incredibly balanced, whereas no game is ever predictable. Every side, despite their position on the ladder, is always a chance of winning on any given day.
It is this fundamental element of the Cap that cannot be lost, as it is by far its most valuable. If Alan Jones’ proposed ranking system could still provide this however, then the validity of it only increases.
With that said, hopefully the proposal of replacing the Salary Cap system can seriously be considered by the games new administrators when the Independent Commission is established in due course.
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