Alex Sanderson is well-acquainted when it comes to the potential damage that comes with a Premiership salary cap breach, having been a coach at Saracens when they were relegated for the issue in early 2020.
And the Sale Sharks director of rugby has opened up about the "grief cycle" he endured moving past that part of his career, hopeful that Leicester Tigers don't have to endure the same amid their own probe.
It was confirmed earlier this week that the incumbent Premiership leaders are co-operating with Premiership Rugby in relation to possible historic breaches of the salary cap, specifically regarding image right payments.
It's alleged the now-defunct company Worldwide Image Management (WIM) was used as an alternative means of increasing player salaries during the period between 2016 and 2020.
But Sale chief Sanderson has questioned the value in punishing the current Leicester players and management for breaches that might have occurred without their knowledge.
"I was in it with Saracens and I wouldn't want anyone to go through that again. Now I've got through the grief cycle, to a certain extent I just think let sleeping dogs lie," Sanderson said on Wednesday.
"I don't think it's anything to do with that current (Leicester) management or those current players and it seems like they could be punished if they are found guilty, for the acts of predecessors.
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"What good is it going to do to drag someone else through the mud, particularly people at Leicester who were not involved at the time?
"I don't see - apart from vilification and retribution - what good it is going to do the game. I would rather put an end to it all. It just keeps rearing its ugly head."
The allegations bear resemblance to those that followed Saracens prior to their relegation at the end of the 2019/20 season, when they were fined £5.4million and handed a 105-point deduction.
The Dyson Report concluded former Saracens chairman and majority owner Nigel Wray had struck image rights deals and opened joint venture companies (JVCs) with players to co-purchase goods such as properties.
These breaches occurred over the course of three seasons between the 2016/17 and 2018/19 campaigns, with some payments withheld from Premiership Rugby as a method of circumventing the salary cap.
Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter has more reason than most to feel aggrieved by Saracens' breaching of the laws in recent years, having been denied a number of titles by the north London club during that period.
And Baxter, 50, has taken a less lenient view in regards to potential historic breaches of cap regulations, insisting some responsibility was always with the clubs to not work around the law.
“If everyone back-tracks, the salary cap [rules] always had a line in it that said whatever it says in the rules, there is an onus on everyone that’s using them to not try and find loopholes and circumvent them,” Baxter told reporters on Wednesday.
“They’ve always pretty much said what came out in the Myners report, that those kind of things you shouldn’t even be attempting to do.
“Things about ‘do image rights count for this, does childcare count’ they were all wrapped up in a very short sentence that you shouldn’t try to find ways around supplementing a player’s salary."
Premiership rugby clubs once operated under a £7million salary cap, which was cut to £5million in the wake of the financial impact wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.
In addition, each team is permitted £600,000 of homegrown player credits (capped at £50,000 per player), as well as two 'marquee' players whose wages do not count towards the budget.
"What the Myners report did was put that in detail, to try and prevent people pushing the loopholes and the bits on the outside," Baxter added. "If your approach has been like that it hasn’t changed at all really, you know your amounts, your credits, and if you have any doubts you phone Andrew Rogers [the Premiership's salary cap director] and get some clarity.”
Despite being director of rugby of the richest club in the Premiership, Bristol Bears boss Pat Lam also took a stern approach when discussing the purpose of the salary cap in reaction to Leicester's investigation.
"We get hit with it a lot, with our owner, but I can say 100 per cent that everything we do is declared," said Lam. "Our recruitment of players factors in everything, whether it is flights, national insurance, image rights; the lot.
"We are all guided in rugby by law and we are all guided in life by law. Ultimately, the key is to understand what the law is, work within it and make sure you do that with integrity."
Leicester have won 10 from 10 games this season and are eight points clear at the Premiership summit, hoping to win their first league title since 2013.
