Listened to some of Eddie on Triple M this morning and he was the typical spin machine, We have a salary cap blah blah blah, nothing about how they got into this.
I was thinking (and TBR may be able top back up) as to why it seems the salary cap issue is only biting them this hard. I 've heard various things about the CBA allowing for salaries to increase in line with the TPP (which provides protection for the player in that their salary will go up if the cap does, but also provides protection for the club if the cap decreases). I wonder if the Pies have played with this to make it seem like their offers are higher. For example, they could state their contract is worth $800k / year (but have a clause that removes the up / down with the TPP) compared to a $700k / annum contract elsewhere. With an annualised 7% for 5 years, the contract value is the same at $4m assuming the cap always goes up.
This would answer why the Pies have been found out, ie. their TPP will reduce by 10%, but if none of their salaries are coming down, they are immediately over the cap by $1.3m assuming they paid 100% of the cap in 2020. If other clubs included this in their cap, then TPP goes down by 10%, so does every salary and hence no real issue.
It's essentially very similar to the GFC, always assuming things only go up, when that flips and they go down its like a house of cards, it will all come tumbling down.
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