Premiership Rugby to release report on Saracens salary cap breaches
Premiership Rugby will release the report into Saracens’ salary cap breaches, it has been announced.
This comes after the club said they were “keen” for the disciplinary report into their salary cap breaches to be published in full.
Premiership Rugby confirmed last week that the reigning English and European champions will be relegated at the end of this season in response to their failure to comply with salary cap regulations for the current campaign.
Saracens were docked 35 league points and fined £5.36million in November for breaking the salary cap in the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
But the report on the investigation led by Lord Dyson into those breaches has so far not been released.
Speaking on Tuesday, Premiership Rugby chief executive Darren Childs said Saracens would need to agree for the report to be published.
He said: “It would take agreement with Saracens, which they’ve withheld, for us to publish.
“We can’t publish it without their approval.”
Neil Golding, who took over from Nigel Wray as Saracens chairman earlier this month, claimed to be surprised by the suggestion the Saracens were protesting the publication of the report.
In a message to supporters, he said: “With regards to the publication of the disciplinary panel’s full report, I am surprised by the suggestion that Saracens are objecting to the publication of the report.
“Since my appointment on January 9, I have spent considerable time in discussions with PRL (Premiership Rugby Limited) and nobody has asked me what my position is on the matter.
“To confirm, we are keen for the report to be published in full, and I made PRL aware of this earlier today. It will provide much needed context and clarity.”
Reflecting on the situation, Golding admitted: “Prior to my time here, there were discussions with PRL in relation to conducting a mid-season audit spanning several seasons.
“It would be fair to say that other PRL stakeholders were sceptical about our compliance with such an audit.
“We carefully considered the option of a full investigatory audit.
“However, that inevitably would have involved a long period of more financial and emotional strain, and this in turn meant this was not a viable option for us.
“We therefore agreed with PRL on relegation in the hope that we could draw a line under the mistakes made by Saracens with respect to compliance with the regulations and concentrate on putting our new robust procedures in place.”
In response to this, Premiership Rugby has announced preparations for the publication of the decision document.
A Premiership Rugby spokesperson said: “Premiership Rugby welcomes Saracens’ decision to withdraw its previous objection to publication of Lord Dyson’s decision,”
“These objections were stated in the strongest terms and in writing on behalf of the club by its lawyers.
“We believe that publication of the decision in respect of Saracens’ past breaches of the salary cap is an important step towards upholding trust in our enforcement of the regulations and the disciplinary process.
“We will now begin preparations for release of the decision. Further details will be provided in the coming days.”
