It is the hour of the great unpacking in English rugby. Heavily sanctioned (6.2 million euros fine and administrative relegation to the English second division) for having exceeded the ceiling of the salary cap during the last three seasons, the Saracens have had no other choice but to open their account books to a disciplinary committee.
Sky News has obtained the detailed 103-page report which updates the trickery that allowed the English club to circumvent the rules of the salary cap and the least that can be said is that former president Nigel Wray had some ideas in mind when it came to paying backhanded stars for his team. Small anthology of presidential shenanigans.
Revealed: How Saracens broke rugby's salary cap rules - Sky News obtains the report which led to their relegation. https://t.co/RUYkfvfhDr pic.twitter.com/p759nob6dh
- Martha Kelner (@marthakelner) January 22, 2020- My small business, not experiencing the crisis
To compensate for less flamboyant compensation than their level suggests, Nigel Wray has invested 1.5 million euros in companies co-created with internationals Billy and Mako Vunipola, by Maro Itoje, Chris Ashton, Richard Wigglesworth.
- Real estate, that's all true
Obviously very concerned about the well being and the heritage of his protégés, Nigel Wray would also have participated in the purchase of the residences of Chris Ashton and the Vunipola brothers. Ashton is said to have paid 80% of the 1.65 million euros that his house was worth, leaving the president to pay the remaining 20%. Regarding the Vuni brothers, the house in question was bought by a company by the name of Vunprop (for Vunipola property) and financed at 66% by the two English internationals and 33% by an interest-free loan from President Wray.
- Itoje, hospitality and image rights
To remunerate Mario Itoje, the Saracens have multiplied the circle. The player would have first received almost 120,000 euros over three years from a company in charge of hospitality at the Saracens stadium. Company run by, damn you, Lucy Wray, daughter of the boss of the Sarries! Investigators, however, found no evidence of the player's presence during any hospitality-related events at Allianz Park in London. For them, there is no doubt that these sums correspond to a salary advantage and not a commercial advantage.
Ultimate pirouette, the image rights of Itodje. Nigel Wray and two other directors bought shares in the English second line image rights company. After study by an independent accounting firm, it turned out that they would have largely overvalued the amount of the shares, paying 1.9 million euros (for 30% of the image rights) which was not worth barely half.
Neil Golding, the new president of the Sarries after the resignation of Nigel Wray on January 2, will have plenty of time to reflect on the methods of his predecessor so as not to reproduce them in the future. His goal, to start again from the second division in order to “be able to draw a line under the mistakes made by the Saracens. "
- Saracens
- Sport
- England
- Rugby
- Relegation