Second-tier clubs tell RFU: Close loophole on loans
Championship teams believe rule is not fair Routine part of handling wage bill, say Gloucester
The Rugby Football Union is facing calls from Championship clubs to pressure Premiership Rugby to amend the loans loophole in its salary-cap regulations.
Executives from two second-tier clubs believe the rules allowing elite teams to temporarily offload highly paid stars to trim their wage
bills should be reviewed. One Championship executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he had already received assurances that the RFU, which governs the division, would review the clause’s impact. However, when contacted last night, an RFU spokeswoman denied that, adding: “We’ve had no approach on this.”
The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday how more than half of top-tier clubs are exploiting the loan loophole which allows them to potentially circumnavigate the cap.
Critics claim the rule is open to manipulation as players can be recalled by clubs at no extra cost for minor competition matches as long as they are providing cover for an injured player. Some executives have also taken issue with the rule in the Championship because Premiership clubs are repeatedly opting for the same teams in the second tier to loan to, possibly because players can then be recalled with minimum fuss.
Bath and Gloucester are known to be among a handful taking advantage of the chance to trim their declared salary-cap wage bills by declaring loans with Yorkshire Carnegie and Hartpury.
Other historic working relationships include Harlequins and Richmond – now in National One; Northampton and Coventry; Saracens and Bedford; Leicester and Nottingham; and Exeter with Plymouth and Cornish Pirates.
However, executives at rival clubs believe there is a risk that the rule will affect competitiveness in the second tier, with certain teams gaining unnatural access over others to star names.
Yesterday, Gloucester defended themselves over their own loan arrangements after drawing criticism from Brendan Venter, the former director of rugby at Saracens.
When pressed for his thoughts on BBC podcast “Rugby Union Weekly”, Venter said centre Henry Trinder, wing Charlie Sharples and full-back Tom Hudson had all been declared as season-long loan players, to ensure Gloucester stayed within the cap. “You just look at what happened at Gloucester. Somebody must have got the budgets unbelievably wrong,” he said.
However, Lance Bradley, the Gloucester chief executive, said in an interview with the Gloucestershire Live website that the club were well within their rights to list players on loan. “The actual regulation that permits these loans has been used by a lot of clubs for a lot of years,” he said. “It’s not a way around the salary cap, it’s part of the cap. It’s a really normal part of managing the salary.”
Bradley added that the clause allowed players to be trimmed from the wage bill under the rule if they were injured or unlikely to be playing first-team rugby. Trinder had suffered a torn Achilles tendon, while Sharples was recovering from surgery. None of the three have appeared for Hartpury. “You pick players who are unlikely to be selected for a reasonable period of time,” said Bradley.
The loan rule will be scrutinised when Lord Myners of Truro launches his review of salary-cap regulations this year in the wake of the Saracens scandal.
The law came to light when Zimbabwean lock Mike Williams and Argentine prop Lucas Noguera were lent out separately by Bath to Yorkshire Carnegie in the Championship in September, before returning to their parent club soon afterwards.
There is no suggestion that the loophole is comparable to pay-cap breaches employed by Saracens, who this week accepted relegation as a further punishment.
Critics say that players can be recalled without cost for minor games