The truth about Chris Ashton, Toulon and the £1.35m Saracens property deal which Sale Sharks paid off
A ‘grace period’ afforded to Chris Ashton regarding repayments to Saracens on a property deal at the heart of the salary cap scandal was only given after Toulon refused to continue paying the former England star’s wages.
The property deal between Ashton and two Saracens directors was one of the main breaches in the salary cap scandal, which caused to Saracens to over-run the salary cap by £98,249.80 in 2017/18.
What’s more, the payment of the £319,600 debt owed to the two Saracens directors by Ashton over the deal was paid off by the owner of Sale Sharks and appears to have been counted twice under the salary cap regulations.
In 2018, Ashton had the balance on outstanding payments to Nigel Wray and Saracens director Dominic Silvester repaid by Sale Sharks owner Simon Orange. It appears that amount (£319,600) was counted towards the salary caps of both clubs across two different seasons.
(Continue reading below…)
WATCH: A damning report reveals the extent of the Saracens salary cap breaches
The details of both the situation at Toulon and the repayment by Sale were redacted from the published Dyson report.
The deal dated back to 2015. Ashton jointly purchased a residential property in Harpenden worth £1,350,000 (valued two years later at £1.6m) with Wray and Silvester. According to the terms of the deal, Ashton owned 80 per cent of the property, while Wray and the other investor had a ten per cent stake each (£159,800).
As it stood it was a legal deal under the salary cap year 2015/16, and it was disclosed to Andrew Rogers, the Premiership Rugby salary cap manager.
In 2017, Ashton then joined Toulon, at which point the England star agreed to buy out the directors’ stakes in the property through monthly instalments over the course of an 18-month period, amounting to a hefty £13,500 a month split between the two directors.
However, in the final month of his stay in France in June 2018, he was unable to make any further instalments after Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal refused to pay him his final salary instalment.
Ashton had originally signed for three years on a fee reported to be in the region of £700,000 a season. Toulon were angry that the winger – who broke the Top 14’s try-scoring record in his first season in France – had decided to leave just one year into his three-year contract.
The infamously belligerent Boudjellal wasn’t pleased. But the reality was the England star and his young family hadn’t settled well in the south of France, and Ashton actively disliked the club environment.
As a result of Ashton’s situation, Saracens then agreed with him ‘a short delay’ in the repayments which appears to have been their downfall.
As Ashton was already an ex-player, allowing him a ‘grace period’ was of no benefit to Saracens and, if anything, it came at the expense of the two directors. Ashton was no longer on their books and Wray has claimed: “We wanted to help him and his family so agreed to a short delay in the repayments.”
‘What is blatantly clear is that Scottish Rugby cannot allow this to fester any further. CEO Mark Dodson is being paid nearly £18,000 a week and he ought to take responsibility for bringing about an amicable resolution,’ writes @JLyall93https://t.co/3GY7ClKRgW
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) January 28, 2020
Ashton was moving to Sale but he still needed to buy out the remaining equity in his house. He approached Sale Sharks and their owner Simon Orange, the brother of Take That band member Jason, agreed in 2018 to pay off the full outstanding amount to the two Saracens directors directly.
The payment counted towards the Sharks salary cap in 2018/19 and was fully legal, a fact Sale confirmed to RugbyPass. Sharks told us that the payment was declared under their 2018/19 salary cap and was “fully compliant under all regulations”.
When the deferment on the payments came to light in 2019 following the PRL investigation, the salary cap disciplinary panel determined that the eight-month period where Ashton didn’t make payments effectively made the deal “a loan from connected parties of Saracens” to Ashton and that it was effectively a benefit in kind to the former player.
The Dyson Report noted that decision “may seem unrealistic and even unfair” and RugbyPass understands that Saracens, of all the contested breaches, are most sour about the Ashton deal as they felt they were punished for being understanding to an ex-player after the fact.
Ashton spoke about the deal this week on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast: “It was completely separate to my contract. Nigel likes property, he invests in property. He came along to the house to see it with me, we had a look round and he gave some thoughts on what we could do.
“I can completely understand why people are annoyed about it because it is a benefit that you don’t get at other clubs. Now I do understand. I do see it. At the time, I didn’t.”
According to Saracens and the PRL report, all parties contributed equity for the purchase equal to their shares in the property. According to Wray, the PRL had “previously confirmed that equity investments of this nature are outside of salary for the purposes of the regulations”.
Ashton now says he saw the deal as a loan, even if at the time it was counted as an equity investment and was legal under the cap when it was first signed off on.
“Nigel was never involved in any negotiations of contracts or anything like that. I saw Nigel as a businessman outside of rugby that I went to see to get a loan like I would from the bank.”
What’s remains unclear is how £319,600 could have been counted on both the Saracens salary cap for 2017/18 as a loan and Sale Sharks the following season in 2018/19.
RugbyPass requested clarification on the matter from Premiership Rugby and a spokesperson said: “The strict confidentiality clauses within the salary cap regulations mean we are unable to comment.”
WATCH: The Rugby Pod sets the scene ahead of the 2020 Guinness Six Nations and reflects on yet more Saracens fallout
Comments on RugbyPass
Thanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
4 Go to commentsYes Sir! Surprising, just like Fraser would also have escaped sanction if he was a few inches lower, even if it was by accident that he missed! Has there really been talk about those sanctions or is this just sensational journalism? I stopped reading, so might have missed any notations.
4 Go to commentsAI is only as good as the information put in, the nuances of the sport, what you see out the corner of the eye, how you sum up in a split second the situation, yes the AI is a tool but will not help win games, more likely contribute to a loss, Rugby Players are not robots, all AI can do if offer a solution not the solution. AI will effect many sports, help train better golfers etc.
45 Go to commentsIt couldn’t have been Ryan Crotty. He wasn’t selected in either World Cup side - they chose Money Bill instead. And Money Bill only cared about himself, and that manager he had, not the team.
25 Go to commentsYawn 🥱 nobody would give a hoot about this new trophy. End of the day we just have to beat Ireland and NZ this year then they can finally shut up 🤐
13 Go to commentsTalking bout Ryan Crotty? Heard Crotty say in a interview once that SBW doesen't care about the team . He went on to say that whenever they lost a big game, SBW would be happy as if nothing happened, according to him someone who cares would look down.. Personally I think Crotty is in the wrong, not for feeling gutted but for expecting others 2 be like him… I have been a bad loser forever as it matters so much to me but good on you SBW for being able to see the bigger picture….
25 Go to commentsThis sounds like a WWE idea so Americans can also get excited about rugby, RUGBY NEEDS A INTERNATIONAL CALENDER .. The rugby Championship and Six Nations can be held at same time, top 3 of six nations and top 3 of Rugby championship (6 nations should include Georgia AND another qualifying country while Fiji, Japan and Samoa/Tonga qualifier should make out 6 Southern teams).. Scrap June internationals and year end tours. Have a Elite top six Cup and the Bottom 6 in a secondary comp….
13 Go to commentsThe rugby championship would be even stronger with Fiji in it… I know it doesen’t fit the long term plans of NZ or Aus but you are robbing a whole nation of being able to see their best players play for Fiji…. Every second player in NZ and AUS teams has Fijian surnames… shame on you!!! World rugby won’t step in either as France and England has now also joined in…. I guess where money is involved it will always be the poor countries missing out….
84 Go to commentsNo surprise there. How hard can it be to pick a ball off the ground and chuck it to a mate? 😂
2 Go to commentsSometimes people just like a moan mate!
4 Go to commentsexcellent idea ! rugby needs this 💪
13 Go to comments9 Brumbies! What a joke! The best performing team in Oz! Ditch Skelton for Swain or Neville. Ryan Lonergan ahead of McDermott any day! Best selection bolter is Toole … amazing player
12 Go to commentsI like this, but ultimately rugby already has enough trophies. Trying to make more games “consequential" might prove to be a fools errand, although this is a less bad idea than some others. Minor quibble with the title of the article; it isn’t very meaningful to say the boks are the unofficial world champions when it would be functionally impossible for the Raeburn trophy not to be held by the world champions. There’s a period of a few months every 4 years when there is no “unofficial” world champion, and the Raeburn trophy is held by the actual world champions.
13 Go to commentsIts a great idea but one that I dont think will have a lot of traction. It will depend on the prestige that they each hold but if you can do that it would be great. When Japan beat the Boks (my team) I was absolutely devestated but I wont deny the great game they played that day. We were outclassed and it was one of the best games of rugby I have seen. Using an idea like this you might just give the the underdog teams more of an opportunity to beat the big teams and I can absolutely see it being a brilliant display of rugby. They beat us because they planned for that game. It was a great moment for Japan. This way we can remove the 4 year wait and give teams something to aim for outside of World Cup years.
13 Go to commentsHi, Dave here. Happy to answer questions 🥰
13 Go to commentsDon’t think that headline is accurate. It’s great to see Aus doing better but I’m not sure they’ve shown much threat to the top of the table. They shouldn’t be inflating wins against the lousy Highlanders and Crusaders either.
3 Go to commentsSuch a shame Roigard and Aumua picked up long term injuries, probably the two form players in the comp. Also, pretty sure Clarke Dermody isn’t their coach. Got it half right though.
3 Go to commentsOh the Aussie media, they never learn. At least Andrew Kellaway is like “Woah, yeah it’s great, but settle down there guys” having endured years of the Aussie media, fans, and often their players getting ahead of themselves only to fall flat on their faces. Have the “We'll win the Bledisloe for sure this year!” headlines started yet? It’s simple to see what’s going on. The Aussie teams are settled, they didn't lose any of their major players overseas. The Crusaders and Chiefs lost key experienced All Blacks, and Razor in the Crusaders case, and clearly neither are anywhere near as strong as last year (The Canes and Blues would probably be 3rd & 4th if they were). The Highlanders are annually average, even more so post-Aaron Smith and a big squad clean out. The two teams at the top? The two nz sides with largely the same settled roster as last year, except Ardie Savea for the Canes. They’ve both got far better coaches now too. If the Aussies are going to win the title, this is the year the kiwi sides will be weakest, so they better take their chance.
3 Go to commentsThe World Cup has to be the gold standard, line in the sand. 113 teams compete for what is the opportunity to make the pool stages, and then the knockout games for the trophy. The concept is sound. This must have been the rationale when the World Cup was created, surely? But I’m all for Looking forward and finding new ways for the SH to dominate the NH into the future. The autumn series needs a change up. Let’s start by having the NH teams come south every odd year for the Autumn/Spring series games?
13 Go to commentsWhat’ll happen when the AI models of the future go back in time and try to destroy the AI models of the past standing in their way of certain victory?
45 Go to comments