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'Total nightmare' - Saracens' lowest ebb during year in Championship
Saracens Chairman Neil Golding says he wants the club to be the ‘poster children’ for adhering to the salary cap as they look to rebuild the brand following the financial scandal that rocked the club in recent years.
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Saracens – who were fined £5.6 million and were automatically relegated to the RFU Championship in 2020 due to breaches of Gallagher Premiership regulations – are now back in the English top-flight and eager to rehabilitate their image, according to Golding.
Golding took over as chairman from longstanding club backer Nigel Wray in 2020 and says Saracens are aiming to be best in class regarding the cap and regulatory matters and balks are the idea that the former champions got off lightly.
“The way it came about, the relegation thing was agreed with Premiership Rugby. If wasn’t as if Saracens just said ‘I didn’t select the punishment. If people didn’t like it then bad luck’. It was part of a fairly detailed discussion with Premier Rugby,” Golding told Jim Hamilton in an exclusive interview on The Rugby Pod.
“People can take their own view of the severity of the punishment. I think it was it was pretty serious – a year being relegated.
“It’s all very well in hindsight, ‘oh well, you bounced back’. But you get relegated, straight after we get Covid. There was no guarantee that we going to keep the squad together. As it turns out the players have shown a tremendous amount of loyalty. You take Max Malins and Ben Earl and Nick Isiekwe, the guys who went out on loan to other clubs, they came back.
“What are we saying? That we should have been relegated for two years? Three years, four years? If people think Saracens should have been punished out of existence, they can think what they like. From my view, it was a pretty serious punishment.
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“Then Covid made it worse because you’re relegated to the championship and as most readers will recollect, there was no guarantee there would even be one [a Championship season]. So the question was, how do you get promoted out of something that didn’t exist? So for me, that was almost the most difficult time, when the Premiership had started in September, and we were just in limbo.
“Then it starts and it’s a 10 game season. Frankly over a 20 to 25 game season you’d back Saracens, we’ve got a sufficiently good team to come back up. So 10 game season, no margin for error, first game of the season, Cornwall – we lose. Total nightmare.”
An experienced lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Golding is part of the consortium that acquired a majority share in the north London club last month, with Wray becoming a minority shareholder in the process.
“Nigel did fall on his sword and he has no executive role in the club since I started. As you’ve seen from the press release, Nigel confirmed that although he’s going to be a shareholder, he’s going to return to being a fan, albeit a super fan.
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“Everything has changed. He’s had zero executive responsibility from January 2020. Zero.
“In light of this new financing, I think his role has changed again. If people think it’s same old, same old, that’s absolutely not the case. It’s a very different situation at Saracens now.
“Nigel’s a minority shareholder and he’s a super fan. He’s had a contribution to the club over time has been huge but that’s in the past and we’ve moved on from that.”
Golding says that any suggestion that Saracens might be tempted to breach salary cap regulations again are farcical.
“From the club’s perspective, any more salary nonsense would be doubly disastrous. It’s already been a bit messy, to say the least.
“From the start I said we are going to be the ‘poster children’ and what that means in practice is that we have a salary cap committee. I sit on that. It is chaired by a very senior ex-PWC partner who knows his business and we’ve got the finance director of the club as well.
“We’ve laboured the point. We’ve had training for the employees, training for the players, we’ve got the new Lord Myners salary cap report, we’ve had conversations with Andrew Rogers, the new salary cap director. It’s really not that difficult.
“If in doubt you ask Andrew Rogers before you buy Maro Itoje a coffee, or Owen Farrell a round of golf, let’s just be squeaky clean about that. That’s the club’s position.”
“Leave aside the club, frankly from my own perspective. I’m a solicitor. I’m been in the same firm [Freshfields] for 31 years. It’s a pretty respectable firm. It’s what the journalists call the magic circle. The firm’s been around since 1740.
“The idea that I have any interest that I’d have any interest a headline that read ‘Freshfield partner Golding in salary cap scandal’ is complete BS. I cannot tell you how inconceivable that is to me. It’s complete nonsense.”
Comments on RugbyPass
“South African franchises would be powerhouses if we had all our overseas based players back in situ. We would have the same unbeatable aura the Toulouses, Leinsters or Saracens of this world have had over the last decade or so.” Proof that Jake white does not understand the economics of the game in SA. Players earning abroad are not going to simply come back and represent the bulls. But they might if they have a springbok contract.
22 Go to commentsA lot of fans just joined in for the fun of it! We all admire O'Gara and what he has done for La Rochelle
3 Go to commentsThe RFU will find a way to mess this up as usual. My bet is there will be no promotion into the the Premiership, only relegation into National League One. Hopefully they won’t parachute failed clubs into the league at the expense of clubs who have battled for promotion.
2 Go to commentsWell that’s the contracts for RG and Jordie bought and paid for. Now, what are the chances we can persuade Antoine to hop over with all the extra dosh we’ll have from living at the Aviva & Croke next season…??? 🤑🤑🤑
3 Go to commentsWow, that’s incredible. Great for rugby.
3 Go to commentsYou probably read that parling is going to coach the wallaby lineout but if not before now you have.
14 Go to commentsIf someone like Leo Cullen was in O’Gara’s place I don’t hear Boo-ing. It’s not just that La Rochelle has hurt Leinster and O’Gara is their Irish boss. It’s the needle that he brings and the pantomime activity before the game around pretending that Munster were supporting LaRochelle just because O’Gara is from Cork. That’s dividing Irish provinces just to get an advantage for his French Team. He can F*ck right off with that. BOOOOO! (but not while someone is lying injured)
3 Go to commentsDid the highlanders party too hard before the game? They were the pits.
1 Go to commentsWhat a player! Not long until he’s in the England side, surely?
2 Go to commentsHe seems to have the same aura as Marcus Smith - by which I mean he’s consistently judged as if he’s several years younger than he actually is. Mngomezulu has played 24 times for the Stormers. When Pollard was his age he had played 24 times for South Africa! He has more time to develop, but he has also had time to do some developing already, and he hasn’t demonstrated nearly as much talent in that time as one would expect. If he is a generational talent, then it must be a pretty poor generation.
4 Go to commentsThe greatest Springbok coach of all time is entirely on the money. Rassie and Jacques have given the south african public a great few years, but the success of the springbok selection policy will need to be judged in light of what comes next. The poor condition that the provincial system is currently in doesn’t bode well for the next few years of international rugby, and the insane 2026 schedule that the Boks have lined up could also really harm both provincial and international consistency.
22 Go to commentsJake White is a brilliant coach and a master in the press. This is another masterclass in media relations and PR but its also a very narrow view with arguments that dont always hold water. White wants his team to win, he wants the best players in SA and wants his team competitive. You however have to face up to the reality of a poor exchange rate and big clubs with big budgets. SA Rugby cant compete and unless it can find more money SA players will keep leaving regardless of Springbok eligibility and this happened in 2015 - 2017. Also rugby is not cricket. Cricket has 3 formats and T20 cricket is where the money is at. When it comes to club vs country the IPL is king but that wont happen because the international calendar does not clash with the club calendar in rugby. So the argument about rugby going down the same path as cricket is really a non-starter
22 Go to commentsNZ rugby seem not to have learnt anything from professional rugby. Super rugby was dying and SA left before they died with the competition. SA rugby did a u turn on their approach to international players playing overseas and such players are now selected for Bok teams. As much as each country would love to retain their players playing in local competitions, this is the way the world is evolving my friends. Move with it or stay 20 years behind the times. One more thing. NZ rugby hierarchy think they are the big cheese. Take a more humble approach guys. You do not seem to have your players best interests at heart.
3 Go to commentsBeaches? In Cardiff? Where?
1 Go to commentsHe is right , the Crusaders will be a threat. Scott Barrett, ( particularly), Fergus Burke , Codie Taylor, ( from sabbatical) etc due back soon for the Crusaders. There are others like Zach Gallagher too. People can right the Crusaders off, Top 8 , here we come !!
1 Go to commentsWe will always struggle for money to match the other sides but the least the WRU can do is invest properly in Welsh rugby. Too much has been squandered on vanity projects like the hotel and roof walk amongst others which will never see a massive return. Hanging the 4 pro sides out to dry over the last decade is now coming back to bite the WRU financially as well as on the pitch. You reap what you sow.
1 Go to commentsWhat do you get if you cross a doctor with a fish? A plastic sturgeon
14 Go to commentsWhat happened to feleti Kaitu’u? Hasnt played in a while right?
1 Go to commentsGregor I just can’t agree with you. You are trying to find something that just isn’t there. Jordie Barrett has signed until 2028. By the end of that he would have spent probably 11-12 years on Super Rugby and you say he can’t possibly have one season playing somewhere else. It is absurd. What about this scenario, the NZR play hard ball and he decides to leave and play overseas. How would that affect the competition. There seems to be an agenda by certain journalists to push certain agendas and don’t like it when it’s not to their liking. I fully support the NZR on this. Gregor needs to get a life.
3 Go to commentsHope he stays as believe he can do a great job.
1 Go to comments