That'd be awesome. Won't happy IMO though...

And this is where we start getting into a very grey area. If a player walks out on a club and becomes a bin man, would a court grant an injunction to stop him working? And in the eyes of a court, is a bin man any different to a rugby union player. I think you are right in that an ru club are likely to pay a fee to grease the wheels of the process, but of a bloody minded player or club challenged this, I think we could easily end up with another bosman situation, in which case contracts really would be worthless

A player wanting to leave a club to be a bin man would be in effect retiring from the game and from sport. A player wanting to leave a club to go an play RU would not be retiring from sport and the courts are not completely stupid. They would easily see the difference and rule accordingly in each case.



As to a new Bosman ruling no RU club would be daft enough to force the issue to get Joel to such and extent that we end up with more changes to the law governing players contracts that [iwould[/i allow him to walk away for free. If they did that any new change on the law would apply equally to their players as well. So any of their players who fancied going to play in France or for another English club could just walk out of the door in exactly the same way.



So at the end of the day despite the conventional wisdom that contracts are not enforceable I think they actually are because if RU forced the issue in such as way as making Joel's contract with Wigan worthless then that would make all their players contracts worthless as well and they won't want that.



It then boils down to Wigan deciding if they want to let Joel leave or not with all the usual discussions about keeping a player who wants away etc.

Given the situation it's quite feasible for Wigan to sue both Tomkins and the RU club. Tomkins for breach of contract and the RU club for being complicit in breaking that contract. It won't happen of course because some kind of compensation will be agreed between the clubs and there's no way Saracens would take a player still under contract at another club without that club's agreement.

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If we didnt bother signing lauaki we could easily give joel alot better contract and we have lost Hoffman, coley etc wages if joel is leaving for money obviously wigan dont think hes worth anymore money than hes on. The £400,000 a year contract is Boll*cks its more like £150,000. Surley wigan could give him £120,000 and if he wont say for that then hes crazy after watching the Rugby union world cup players like joel what like to run with ball and score tries is not what there all about. Even All Blacks and Wallabies was about kicking and scruming. Also i think give Ashton another 12 month and he wont be in England Squad from what i have heard. At least in RL he knows he can play and enjoy the game and he will get a decent wage till hes about 33 in union if he gets a 3 year deal and it goes wrong when he wants to come back RL he will get less than what hes on now and if they have ruined him he will be retired for 30

are in a mess financially and we are stronger than that.” Did he really say that?



RU clubs have much higher incomes than RL clubs. Even if every RU premiership club went into admin because their investors pulled out most would come out of admin in better shape than any SL club due to the higher TV money, higher sponsorship revenue and higher matchday revenue (even the small clubs make a mint as they charge far more for tickets than RL clubs). IL needs to face up to the reality of the situation I'm afraid.

Lenegan is obviously basing his comments on both the revenue and cost base, you statement above completely ignores the costs in RU and is based solely on revenue. I think I'll go with the successful self-made multi-millionaire on this one.

Me too, bang on there. When a club is losing lots of money its a ticking time bomb that could implode at any moment. You can have all the razzmatazz and attention you want in RU but if a club goes bust then whats the point? From a business standpoint we are much stronger as we dont spend beyond our means and weve had success and also turned a profit at the same time.



The premier league has got similar problems in that theres a lot of clubs in there with huge debts who just use the tv money to service it. The will hit that fan at some point though unless they smarten up business wise.

Go with whoever you like!

There are far wealthier and more successful businessmen involved in RU than in RL so I'd suggest they and the RFU probably have a better idea of how to build a sport than the RL club owners and the RFL. Are you really with IL on this one, that club RU is in a worse state than RL financially? RL clubs can't even pay 70% in real terms of the player salaries that they were paying at the outset of the SC. They're absolutely on the breadline in professional sport terms. RU clubs may need to rein in spending but it would be quite easy for them to do so against a backdrop of very strong TV, corporate and spectator revenue.



Let's look at the evidence since RU went professional only 15 years ago... RL has gone backwards in that period, club RU has gone from a one man and a dog spectator sport to a bigger spectator sport than club RL..... how many SL clubs have gone into admin or got into serious financial difficulties in that period... how many RU premiership clubs have gone into admin or got into serious financial difficulties in that period...??? Hmmm. I know who I'd go with....

If you're expecting RU at club level to suffer significantly due to overspending then that's wishful thinking I'm afraid. It will continue to grow and outstrip RL at club level, even if the odd club gets in difficulties (and RU would have to get things very wrong to have as many clubs go bust as RL!!). RU management isn't great but it's streets ahead of RL.

You've made the classic mistake of confusing turnover for financial health, and as I've already stated completely ignored the very different cost base in both sports. The fact all these sugar daddies are running up huge losses despite these higher revenue streams in order to try to remain competitive should also be a clue.



"Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity".



SO who should I believe about the state of Wigan RL's business? Extremely successful businessman who has built-up his own £ multi-million business and would know the true state of Wigan RL's finances or Deano G with a salary cap fixation?