Putting aside whether we need a Salary cap or not (and I personally believe we shouldn't)..... But we have one, and everybody signed up to abide by it. Sarries have cheated for now FOUR years and should have all trophies stripped, thrown out of Europe this season and relegated next season. I CANNOT for the life of me work out how they are being allowed to defend their European title!!!!!????? And the press are eulogising about performances!!!!!  ??? ??? ???

Yes everyone seems to forget about the 2015 "investigation" that was all swept under the carpet 🙄

You can make a case that their place in the Champions Cup came about because they qualified in the Premiership with a squad that broke the Premiership regulations. Their position this year is based on last year's top 6 finish in the Prem, which they may or may not have managed if they had been playing with a squad that met the Salary Cap.

However, I'd like to see them continue to the Champions Cup  final (but lose that) as it means they will have to play their top level players in that competition, meaning the Premiership games they play will find them fielding the "lesser internationals" in their squad & teams will have a chance to beat them.

As regards the benefits of a Salary Cap, I think while the sport is still in its infancy as a Professional entity, some form of financial control is required. If there had been no SC, there would have been nothing stopping three clubs (Sarries, Bath & Bristol) bank-rolled by men willing to spend whatever was necessary to put together teams of Galacticos dominating the premiership for years to come, with the other clubs as perennial "also-rans". Any club trying to compete through spending more & more risk seeing clubs collapse similarly to Richmond & London Welsh have done in recent memory.

On Europe, you can say they got qualification illegally, but it's up to the individual competitions to decide how qualification is handled. It's not the preserve of the European Champions Cup. Once there, there's nothing illegal about Sarries' squad in a European context (just look at the French and Leinster).

Actually, Jammy, while that used to be the case, the qualification rules are now set at the EPCR level rather than the national competition.

It was part of the shake-up when the whole European competition was shaken up a few years back. The English & French teams were fed up with having to qualify through hard-fought games in their domestic competition, while the Welsh, Scottish, Irish & Italian teams were guaranteed a set number of teams in the top competition however well they played in the P12(14). When the new competition was set up, the qualification was set at the EPCR level, rather than being the purview of the individual Unions.