THE LONG-AWAITED disciplinary report on Saracens’ Premiership salary cap breaches reveals how the club overspent by £1.1 million and £906,000 in two of the three seasons examined.

The 103-page Dyson report was leaked to Sky News last night and details £1.3 million worth of joint ventures club owner Nigel Wray entered into with players.

Saracens are to be relegated at the end of the current campaign after new chairman Neil Golding opted to ‘draw a line’ under the issue and accept demotion to the Championship rather than invite a full investigative audit.

The breaches outlined in Sky News’ report – which you can read here - range from part-funding purchases of property with Chris Ashton, Mako and Billy Vunipola to an additional £30,000 payment to Maro Itoje from a hospitality company based at Allianz Park and run by Wray’s daughter, Lucy.

Saracens overspend on the £7 million salary cap amounted to £1.1 million in 2016/17 (a campaign in which they won the Heineken Champions Cup), £98,000 in 2017/18 (when they won the Premiership after losing to Leinster in the quarter-finals of Europe) and £906,000 in 2019/18 (when they secured the domestic and European double).

The report concludes with a recommendation that the club ought not to be relegated and says the club’s breaches were not deliberate.

“We accept that the breaches were not deliberate, but in our view they were reckless. We consider that to impose a deduction of 70 points in one salary cap year is disproportionate and is not required to satisfy the underlying purpose.”