This archive report was first published on 14 May 2020.
On May 14, 2020, a review of the English Premiership's salary cap rules was published, recommending severe penalties for clubs that breach the league's regulations in the future.
The review, led by former British government finance minister Paul Myners, was commissioned after reigning Premiership champions Saracens were found to have breached salary cap regulations in each of the past three seasons.
As a result of the breaches, Saracens will be relegated from the English top-flight at the end of the current campaign. The London club was hit with a cumulative 105-point deduction and a £5.3 million fine for repeatedly breaching the £7 million salary cap limit.
However, there was no mechanism under the existing regulations for Premiership Rugby to deprive Saracens of their titles while the club was operating outside the salary cap.
According to Myners, the review's recommendations should be viewed as a package of measures to restore the integrity of the regulations, rather than a menu of options to pick and choose.
“It is important that my recommendations should be viewed as a package of measures which, if taken together, will go a long way to restoring the integrity of the regulations,” Myners wrote in his report.
