Leicester Tigers have received the second largest salary cap punishment in Premiership Rugby history — but avoided a points deduction that would have damaged their title challenge.
The club have been fined £309,841.06 after an investigation revealed that players had received commercial payments from a third party between 2016 and 2021 that were not declared as salary.
When those payments were converted to salary, it pushed Leicester above the cap for four of the five seasons that Premiership Rugby was permitted to investigate.
The Times revealed in December that Andrew Rogers, the league’s salary cap director, was investigating a company called Worldwide Image Management (WIM) and its links to Leicester.
Sources had said that “off the books” image rights payments from WIM were used to boost player salaries outside the salary cap. The company was closed down voluntarily last February.
Advertisement
The maximum overspend uncovered was £147,750 in 2016-17, when the salary cap was £6million.
The fine must be paid within 21 days. It was worked out via a formula whereby the club would pay 50p for every £1 of overspend up to the first £50,000. Between £50,000-£200,000 the fine was £1 for every £1 overspend.
The breakdown of Leicester’s punishment is therefore:
2016-17: Breach £147,750.00. Fine £122,750.00.
2017-18: Breach £89,718.05. Fine £64,718.05.
2018-19: Breach £55,886.6. Fine £30,886.69.
2019-20: Breach £98,586.32. Fine £73,586.32.
Leicester were also fined £17,900 for failing to disclose the commercial arrangements, which had been in place at the club for over a decade, in all five years of the period of investigation.
Advertisement
Through this period, Premiership Rugby rules set clubs an “overrun limit” of £325,000 in 2016-17, rising to £350,000 the following year when the cap increased to £6.4 million. Any breach within those parameters would be punishable by a fine.
A club had to break the cap by more than that amount to trigger a points deduction, which was why Leicester’s 12-point lead at the top of the Gallagher Premiership remains intact.
Saracens are the only club known to have been punished more severely, although their case was on a different scale to Leicester. Saracens were found in 2019 to have broken the salary cap in three seasons, by £1.13 million, £98,000 and £906,000. They were also unable to reduce their spending in time to avoid breaking the salary cap for a fourth season in 2019-20.
The club were fined £5.36 million and deducted a total of 105 points to guarantee their relegation. The Saracens case sparked two in-depth reviews, which led to the salary cap rules and the league’s investigatory powers being strengthened.
Leicester were dealt with under the regulations as they existed at the time. The club accepted the findings so they were not charged and will not have any option to appeal.
Advertisement
Andrea Pinchen, who was promoted to replace Simon Cohen as the Leicester chief executive in 2020, said: “We accept the decision and the acknowledgement that there was no overrun in the most recent season of the review.”