In what seems to have become an annual case of déjà vu, or a convenient opportunity for the media to recycle stories, Jamal Idris’s recent protracted contract negotiations resurfaced debate about the introduction of a transfer window for off contracted NRL players.
The reasoning behind such a measure, among others, is that when a marquee player signs for another club mid season, it disheartens fans of the players current club, creates distractions for the playing group, generates ‘negative’ publicity and somehow generally detracts from the current season.
While in the heat of the moment such media articles can be effective in appealing to the outrage of the public masses, often what is ignored are the commercial practicalities which has shaped the contracting system the NRL has today.
Ultimately, a transfer window is unviable because any restrictions on when a player can negotiate an NRL playing contract leaves the sport vulnerable to its external competitors. Unlike AFL, which can maintain an authoritarian control over its players due to a lack of competitors, the NRL competes with the UK Super League and both domestic and international rugby unions and now AFL for marquee talent.
Additionally, a transfer window won’t necessarily solve many of the issues people claim it will. It has in fact been tried before in some forms and simply encouraged back door dealing.
Say hypothetically that it is evident by mid year that a marquee NRL player is keen to test the open market. Firstly, just because they cant sign with another club wont mean that there wont still be articles about players indicating their intentions to test the market or articles insinuating back door deals (as was the case in years passed).
However, more importantly, what happens when a French rugby club, the ARU or AFL, who of course would not bound by NRL rules, offer a marquee player a big money contract mid season during a time period where competing NRL clubs would not be allowed to make a rival offer?
This would potentially leave players in a position to take the safety of a big money contract elsewhere or wait until the NRL contract window to see what is available, by which point the original opportunity to sign elsewhere may have passed.
Other suggestions such as systems whereby players can sign but nothing can be announced until the end of season are also naïve in their assessment of rugby league’s inability to keep secrets and such systems would also face many other commercial impracticalities.
Ultimately, if I have a choice between Jamal Idris signing to another NRL club mid season or Jamal Idris accepting an offer from French rugby mid-season because he wasn’t willing to wait to see what other NRL clubs could offer at the end of the year, then I know which I believe to be the lesser of two evils.
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