Saracens accept relegation from Premiership and ‘unreservedly apologise’ for salary cap scandal
The reigning champions’ crashing fall from grace was confirmed by Premiership Rugby on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.Saracens have accepted the Gallagher Premiership's ruling that they will be relegated at the end of the 2019/20 season.
The Premiership title holders' crashing fall from grace was confirmed by Premiership Rugby on Saturday.
Winners of four league titles in the last five years, Saracens will play in the Championship next term.
"The board of Saracens wishes to unreservedly apologise for the mistakes made in relation to the salary cap regulations," a club statement read.
“Our goal is to rebuild confidence and trust. The first step was to appoint a new independent chairman to lead on governance reform ensuring errors of the past are not replicated in the future. Furthermore, following open and frank discussions with PRL, we have accepted the unprecedented measure of automatic relegation from the Premiership at the end of the 2019-2020 season.
“We understand this decision will be difficult for the Saracens family to accept. The Board must embody the values of the club, learn from its mistakes so the Club can come back stronger. It is in the wider interests of the Premiership and English rugby to take this decisive step, to ensure everybody is able once again to focus on the game of rugby, which we all love.
“We hope that we can now start to move forward, begin to restore confidence and over time, rebuild trust with PRL, its stakeholders and the wider rugby community.”
Saracens faced the impossible task of reducing their wage bill by up to £2million to comply with salary cap regulations for the current season.
Saracens were fined £5.36million and docked 35 points in November for being in breach of the salary cap for the last three seasons, but patience ran out among their Premiership rivals over their efforts to slash their existing wage bill.
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