ANGER at Saracens’ flagrant breach of English rugby’s salary-cap rules, initially confined to their own country, has now become far more widespread, and understandably so. It emerged last week that the London club will be relegated at the end of this season as they will inevitably break the cap again, but for the time being they continue to enjoy success on the field, and on Sunday qualified for the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup, a trophy they hold.
At best, this appears to go against natural justice. Saracens have been punished in England for breaking the rules by assembling their current playing squad at great expense, yet in Europe they continue to profit by doing so.
This situation is perhaps particularly galling for Glasgow Warriors fans, who saw their own club’s hopes of a last-eight place ended when Saracens beat Racing 92 on Sunday.
Granted, there is no salary cap in the Champions Cup, so Saracens have not broken the regulations in that tournament. Yet there is no denying that, had they conformed to the rules in their own domestic competition, they would never have been able to put together a squad so formidable that it has been crowned champions of Europe in three of the past four seasons.
But before we become too indignant about Saracens’ willingness to flaunt their wealth and flout the rules, we would do well to acknowledge two other factors. One is that word “indirectly” as applied to Glasgow’s elimination. The other is the need in sport for real competition off the field as well as on.
Firstly, yes, you could say that Saracens knocked the Warriors out. Or you could blame Glasgow’s home draw with Exeter or the home defeat by La Rochelle. Players and coaches like to talk about “controlling the controllables”, and the fact is that the Warriors had their destiny in their own hands.
If they had beaten Exeter with a bonus point – or perhaps even without one – they would have gone through. If they had beaten
La Rochelle they would have gone through. And Saracens could not have done a thing about it.
Secondly, while we do need a framework of financial rules to ensure fair play and guard against the sort of reckless overspending that could jeopardise the health of the sport, there is a danger in levelling down and making those regulations too strict. Clubs need to be able to attract investment and to thrive or fail by their own efforts.
There is nothing in theory to prevent the SRU from becoming immensely rich and trebling the budgets given to Glasgow and Edinburgh.
If rugby in Scotland is relatively impoverished and failing to flourish, we should look within our own borders for answers, rather than casting envious eyes at affluent outfits else-where.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel