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  • So...have I got this right?

    • Sarries relegated at end of season (YES)
    • No other team can be relegated this season?
    • Sarries cannot be promoted in 2020/21 season (bit confused as read something about compliance for two seasons however there is no salary cap below the Premiership)?
    • Any Saracens players that play outside of England (and that includes the Pro14 were an application to be made to join the 'Celtic' League by Sarries, or were current Sarries players to join Pro14 sides) cannot represent England.
  • My understanding:

    • Yes
    • Yes (as in, they will be the only team relegated)
    • I read that they can be promoted, but a condition of this relegation is that any attempt to come up would be subject to a full open-books financial review indicating cap compliance.
    • As it stands, yes, but there's the not-yet-used 'exceptional circumstances' lacuna in that law around foreign-based player selection and if this isn't exceptional circs I don't really know what is. My guess is a surprising number of the biggest players will take a pay cut and stay for a year (unless there is a restriction upon immediate promotion), a number more will take loan moves (both within the prem and abroad if they get the nod that exceptional circumstances can be invoked) and a small number of players will actually be sold - looks like Kruis is going, imagine some of the old guard (Wigglesworth, Goode, Bosch etc) go to France/Japan for final paycheck...

    What is interesting, and I haven't read much more about this, is the Exeter owner continuing to be very forthright that no-one should feel any sympathy for them - apparently they've accepted this relegation rather than allow a full forensic accounting of their books and Wray's finances. I'm not entirely sure what his insinuation is, as they've copped for salary cap breaches and 'creative accounting' but I guess this may have been even more egregious than currently portrayed. Or maybe they just didn't want to drag it out any more...

  • Agree but I wonder if it was actually a choice between a) relegation
    And b) open books and relegation

  • Also interesting not to see any (to my mind) criticism of the players who were clearly 'in on it' and even if it's not deemed appropriate to criticise the players, I wonder if their association and fact they benefited by going along with it will make them persona non Grata (temporarily at least) within England rugby

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