The Breakdown | Premiership rugby needs financial fair play now more than ever


Lord Myners’ salary cap report has drawn criticism but this is the time to control costs and reset business ethics

Paul Myners well knows the devastation a financial crisis can cause. He was the finances services secretary to the Treasury when the world recession hit in 2008 and, as he was drawing up his report on the Premiership’s salary cap, sport went into lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic. He laced his findings with reminders to a business that was already struggling to become sustainable with timely warnings. “Their long-term financial viability was not assured before this moment,” he said of the Premiership clubs. “It is far less so now.”

Lord Myners viewed the cap as a safety valve against unsustainable losses and, although he was too polite to couch it in such undiplomatic language, he clearly viewed the current regulations as a pile of manure, designed neither to ensure nor enforce compliance.

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