Sky have got hold of it and have to say I find it pretty shocking. In the grand scheme of things at least in the world of sports its nothing, certainly nowhere near bad enough to justify the punishment they've been given.
Interestingly it seems its Saracens themselves pushing for the report to be released, while the league have been claiming otherwise.
The most striking thing is the disciplinary panel accepted the breaches of the regulations weren't deliberate and advised against relegation as a punishment saying it would be disproportionate.
The overspend in 2016-17 was only £1.1m and that was the highest! In 2017-18 it was £98K and in 2018-19 it was £906K. And when you look at the details of the overpayments the ground gets even more shaky. One player was supposedly paid salary in kind when two directors of the club invested 20% equity in a property. Only problem with that theory is he wasn't playing for Saracens after the purchase so how did they benefit from a salary paid in kind?
Another example is where three directors buying shares in a players image rights company. The company was valued by PwC and they invested based on that but the league has decided the shares were only worth half the PwC valuation.
It also brings up an interesting point regarding Saracens supposed refusal to open up 3 years of their books to an audit, that line seems to be getting thrown around a lot on social media as proof of their guilt. However it seems they said they were happy to have their books audited if every other club was audited.
Something seems very off with this whole thing to me.
