A cap is legally challengable due to 'restriction of trade' in terms of their is a capped limit on pay.
I am unsure of the figure and Im not even going to try to work it out, but I would imagine something like 3 million is the absolute most you could pay a player and still remain under the cap if everyone else was on minimum. Thats a dictated limit and is illegal. However, good luck to the player that complains about his 2+ million pay packet.
The same thing happened in 1994 in the NRL when we adopted an AFL style draft system. Terry Hill, of all people got the sh*ts and legally challenged the ARL (NRL) saying its illegal and he won!
The salary cap generally works, but it has had its faults.
In thE 00's it was simply too low at 3 million (then 3.5), it was squeezing talented players out of the game, to England and Unions benefit. This drew the ire of Gus Gould who was very vocal that it was too low and was going against the point of it. These problems cleared up at the turn of the decade when the cap was around 6 mil. Now we are on a good spot at 9.4, even though I'd argue that some of this should be set aside for bringing in new talent from outside (raiding Union,NFL and AFL). The introduction of the cap in Rugby league was actually to stop clubs sending themselves broke by paying more than they think we could afford (Hey Ray Dib).
Nowadays, the ultimate point of the cap is to keep the poorest team competitive with the richest. Imagine 2011 Cronulla trying to compete with 2011 Brisbane? Brisbane could literally buy the whole team to be their reserve grade if so, then it would mean that Cronulla,Manly etc would never be competitive with the Dogs, Brisbane and so forth.
I dont know about you but I'd struggle to support the bulldogs if they played chequebook footy against Cronulla, the underdogs who struggle week to week and are forced to be creative with how they do things. I dont go to footy to watch men smash under 8's. Id veer to the underdog.Same thing.
However, and this is important, like all communism, this rewards shitkicking, losers and people that run a crap ship. It disencentivises clubs that strive for excellence, genius, and getting ahead. The same way communism has failed in society by adequetely compensating doctors, scientists etc which ultimately makes people say 'Fugg working hard, Im going to do work/life balance and be a hotel caretaker'.
In league up until now, the one part of the structure that doesnt have the cap, coaching, is where we have seen the innovation and strategy improve. However i think thats capped now.
I personally think the way around this is for clubs who can afford it, have a marquee player outside of the cap. Theres an informal way of doing this atm and thats high rep payments, but still.
So at the beginning of the year we could have nominated Willie Mason in 2008 to have his 500k+1mil cap excluded. This rewards the club for building and running the leagues club, rather than plodding along being guaranteed the NRL grant and nothing else, no development or what not. This shouldnt impact competition too much, and when current teams like the GC get themselves together, they can buy one too.
Should also mean we never lose a player to Union that we want to keep again.
