SALARY CAP

The salary cap for the 2011 season will be £8 million which must not be exceeded at any time.  This increase (from £1.8 million previously) reflects a change to 30 man squads and a change in the way player salaries are calculated.

RETENTION RULES

Teams who did not make the play-offs in the 2010 season may retain a maximum of 13 players.
Teams who made the play-offs in the 2010 season but did not reach a Grand Final may retain a maximum of 15 players.
Teams who reached the Grand Final in the 2010 season may retain a maximum of 17 players.

In addition to the above retained players, all teams may retain a maximum of 3 players who were salaried at £55,000 (now shows as £220,000) or less during the 2010 season.  This is an increase from the normal £44,000 (4/4 rated) due to the way in which some players who play in SL games are rated.

Further to the above:
Additional retention places, which are in addition to the standard retention on offer at the start of each season will be offered to the first SIX teams in the reserves league as indicated below:

1st and 2nd - ADDITIONAL ONE RETENTION PLACE, plus TWO players at £55,000 or below (2010 value).
3rd and 4th - ADDITIONAL ONE RETENTION PLACE, plus ONE player at £55,000 or below (2010 value).
5th and 6th - ADDITIONAL ONE PLAYER at £55,000 or below (2010 value).

Teams will have until 1800hrs GMT on 04/03/2011 to submit their retention to Kevin Brock.

Teams who fail to do so by the deadline will have their players retained at random.

DRAFT RULES

NEW TEAMS DRAFT

New Teams will start the draft by each being allocated eight of their draft picks. The order in which this is allocated is listed below and has been drawn at random. Please note the reason this has been increased from 5 to 8 players is due to the expansion of minimum squads from 27 to 30 players.

Following the selection of eight players each, the draft will commence as stated below.

At the end of the draft process, all teams will have a minimum of 16 players.

PLAYER DRAFT

The 2011 season will again see players allocated by means of an e-mail draft.

Selections for all teams must be received by Patrick Cunningham no later than 1800hrs GMT on Friday 11/03/2011.

The draft will run for eight rounds and the order for the draft will be based on the amount of salary cap space remaining following the retention process and will not be varied.  The team with the most remaining cap space will go first. There will be no reversing of the draft order.

ADVICE ON DRAFT AND MEAT MARKET ORDERS
 
There are no specifics for how to construct your orders, but here are some general comments & ideas what players have done in the past:
 
1) Make sure your orders are clear and understandable
2) Spreadsheets, text files, or orders just in a body of an email are acceptable
3) I will attempt to read your orders prior to the draft/mm and communicate back that your orders are understood or if I need a clarification
4) Kevin will be provided a copy of my orders probably around the Wednesday of each phase to prevent any conflicts of interest (orders will probably be due on a Friday).
5) If you have any problems getting your orders in timely please tell Kevin why in advance, else you may be assigned random players or worse, skipped all together [Please note that you will have to have an absolutely cast iron reason why you can't submit on time - Kevin]
 
Examples of orders:
 
1) Take the highest rated (salary) player available
2) Take the highest player available with GK below 7
3) Take the highest player available with GK over 6
4) Take the highest player available whos position is 2
** Note the highest player avail. who can play at 2 is NOT acceptable (as a fullback, winger, or centre can play at 2)
5) Take the first player available from list A, next round take the first available from list B, etc.
6) Each round take the first available player from list A until exhausted, then start taking players from list B, etc.
7) Take any 132,000 salary player
8) One general order I will accept and that I recommend everyone include is "If I am in potential to breach the salary cap, take the cheapest available player".  I will keep a running total of everyone's salary cap and calculate how much each team has left to spend, once you can not buy anything but 132,000 players, this order will kick-in. The penalty for salary cap breaches are severe and a real pain to undo, as one would have selected players they can not keep, but others may have wanted.

** Please note that the minimum information provided for each selection is the Player ID, the Player Name and the salary of the player.  If this information is missing, Patrick has the authority to reject the draft orders and request these be re-submitted in the correct format **

MEAT MARKET

Following the e-mail draft, an e-mail “Meat Market” will be conducted by the end of which all teams must have a squad of exactly 30 players. This is due to the number of players required to ensure the sim operates correctly.

Lists are to be provided to Patrick Cunningham no later than 1800hrs GMT on 18/03/2011 and will be actioned as soon as possible.  The order shall be based on teams with the most available cap space going first and this shall be revised after each selection allocated.

Following the meat market, there will be a short period of free player moves/trades which will be handled by Kevin Brock.

FREE PLAYER MOVES

At the conclusion of the retention, draft and meat market phases, teams may submit free player pool moves or trades between teams. This period will commence at 0900hrs GMT on Monday 21st March and close at 1800hrs on Friday 25th March 2011. Requests must be made to Kevin Brock.

Teams may negotiate trades privately between themselves or trade players within their squad for available players from the player pool. 

All requests will be actioned as soon as possible and will be dealt with on a first come first served basis.

At the conclusion of the window, it will not be possible to trade players until the trade window re-opens on 27 April 2011 (the Wednesday prior to the commencement of the league season). This means that, as of 25 March 2011, the database will be locked down (this is also needed as it has to be converted into the required format for the sim to run) and the squad you have will need to be the squad used for any trial matches and the Pre-Season Cup.

BREACH OF SALARY CAP

All teams must remain within the salary cap at all times.

In all instances, the League President shall have the power to remove and replace players from the team, without consultation with the coach, in order to ensure that the teams are compliant with the salary cap at all stages of the retention/draft/meat market selection process.

In the event it is considered likely that a team may exceed the salary cap at any point, steps may be taken as necessary to reduce the risk of this. As a guideline only, the maximum allowable spend at any given point in the recruitment process shall be:

Retention – no more than 75% of available salary cap (£6,000,000)
Player Draft – no more than 87.5% of available salary cap (£7,000,000)
Meat Market – no more than 100% of available salary cap (£8,000,000)

Teams should, at all points, try to remain within the guideline figures indicated above.