Bristol salary cap gaffe has sparked a player fire sale - report
Ex-England second row Dave Attwood won't be the first top player to exit Bristol as it has been reported a fire sale is underway due to a Premiership salary cap oversight for the 2022/23 season by the Bears. It was two years ago - during the lockdown suspension of the 2019/20 season - that a decision was taken by the Gallagher Premiership clubs to reduce the salary cap from £6.4million to £5m for the 2021/22 season.
A clause, though, allowed clubs to only count 75 per cent of existing contracts against the revised cap, something that resulted in a host of clubs renegotiating the existing deals they had with players prior to the July 1 deadline in 2020.
This led to numerous contracts becoming 'two-plus-one', two-year deals with the option of a third year when the time came and it would allow clubs to count just 75 per cent of that revised contract towards the reduced salary cap.
However, the UK Telegraph have now reported that Bristol missed the deadline regarding the 'plus-one' aspect, resulting in the third year of the 'two-plus-one' deals kicking in and leaving them poised to spend more than stipulated by the salary cap for the 2022/23 season.
This administrative gaffe has apparently resulted in Bristol having to offload a half-dozen players. The Telegraph reported: "It is understood Bristol intended to release six players, whose contracts were worth an estimated £400,000.
"However, they missed the deadline, meaning the third-year extensions had already kicked in. A club spokesman declined to comment on Thursday night. Even if those players are paid off, it is understood that would still count against the salary cap, so Bristol are now having to make savings wherever they can.
"Including their marquee players, Bristol had one of the biggest wage bills in the Premiership and an emergency board meeting was convened when the mistake came to light in March. They have also committed to signing England prop Ellis Genge and Sale fly-half AJ MacGinty for next season."
Other players now linked to the fire sale commenced by the offloading of Attwood to Bath on Thursday are former Wallabies winger Luke Morahan and midfielder Antoine Frisch. The salary cap blunder is the latest twist in an underwhelming season for Bristol.
They finished last season on top of the Premiership regular season table but their results have imploded this season, Pat Lam's team winning just six of its 19 league games so far to leave them in tenth place and with no chance of reaching the end-of-season semi-finals.
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Think we have to accept we have been on the slide for a while now.Still interesting to see the repeated media pieces about the myth of the ABs slipping-I would say slipped past tense.In part don’t we have to give credit for the improvement of other nations particularly Ireland?Isnt that good for the game?Are we beginning to feel the impact of losing the Boks from Super rugby and maybe soon TRC?I would agree we are also ran right now so will be interesting to see how we progress-assuming we do!Isnt that part of sport though to be in improvement mode?Back to the stats though I think the Boks were under 60% leading into 2019?Now with the focus on the RWC does it matter so much what you are doing between tournaments?You just get through your group(remembering the ABs qualified 2nd in 2023)and then you have 3 matches to win the thing.
Go to commentsThe ABs have more than enough back line guys so don’t see issue there. Just the balance at center and feel time for Rieko to sit out.Forwards- balance still not right. Front row ok but miss Codie. But still ok. Locks- you now need to start s a tall timber at middle of lineout- Darry is the right guy. Then move Sititi to 8, move Ardie to 7 and then move Vaai to blindside. He can become the closest to PSdT . Then have proper bench as this is not a demotion but key to dominating last 30 minutes- Patrick, Ofa etc are golden here. Get the balance right between starters and finishers
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