A fresh attempt to give Super League clubs salary cap dispensation to sign players from Salford Red Devils will be made this week.
The governing body has ordered the cash-strapped Red Devils to sell players in an attempt to save approximately £800,000.
With the new season less than a month away, many Super League teams have spent close to or beyond their budgets, but clubs this week rejected the RFL’s plan to exclude Salford Red Devils players from the 2025 pay ceiling if they join a rival club.
The situation is due to be discussed again at a clubs’ meeting on Wednesday and Leeds Rhinos chief executive Gary Hetherington reckons salary cap dispensation would “increase Salford’s chances of survival because it means they can offload some players, get transfer fees and offload the wages”.
He revealed: “We have made an amendment [to last week’s proposal] to say clubs with spare salary cap capacity should have first option to sign Salford players.
“There should be a window of maybe several weeks for that to happen and subsequently if Salford still need to sign players beyond that period, then there should be a dispensation – for 2025 only – to all clubs to sign one player from Salford.
“That in many ways flies in the face of what we’ve been advocating, which is we’ve got to exert more cost control, not increase spending, but the priority here is to keep Salford solvent.”
The Leeds chief admitted there is “very strong feeling” among clubs about Salford’s plight.
He added: “Clubs are saying it is a totally self-inflicted situation – they have over-spent without having the income to support that spending. “In the past, other clubs – like Castleford last year – have had to manage the best way they could; they didn’t over-spend and they’ve kept themselves afloat. Salford should have done the same.
“So there’s some clubs who don’t have much sympathy for them, but at the end of the day, for the integrity of the game and the competition and everything that goes with it, it is important we all do as much as we can to keep Salford afloat.
Salford are hopeful a takeover can be completed which would mean the Red Devils no longer have to part with their star names.
Hetherington stressed: “If they get new owners who want to retain the squad they’ve got and they can financially underpin Salford for the rest of the season, that is the ideal solution.”
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