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Dave Smith should abandon his 'war chest' idea

11th May, 2014
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(AAP Image/Action Photographics, Renee McKay)
Expert
11th May, 2014
92
1337 Reads

There has been a lot of attention in the media in recent days about Dave Smith and the NRL allowing a ‘war chest’ to be set up to keep stars of the rugby league game here in the NRL instead of code-hopping.

The idea is that some of a star player’s salary will be paid outside the salary cap to stop them from doing what Israel Folau did, or what Sam Burgess is about to do – leave the NRL to play a different code of football.

Well Dave Smith, I have news for you. This is a horrible idea with a capital H – in fact, you can capitalise the whole word. Some of you think it is a good idea to stop rugby league’s superstars leaving the game by spending a few extra bucks on them from outside of a team’s salary cap, right?

Let me explain why it isn’t.

The salary cap is there to keep the competition fair. This is being demonstrated this year, with the competition so far being one of the most unpredictable in history. Tipping games is about as easy as climbing Mount Everest and every game seems to bring a new surprise.

This is why the salary cap is great, because on the whole it keeps the playing field pretty level. By using the NRL’s ‘war chest’ money, the salary cap suddenly becomes something that can almost be forgotten.

Let’s take Sonny Bill Williams, one of the players that would be likely be attempted to be kept in the NRL. Let’s say the Rosters are willing to pay him $1 million a season, but he is demanding another $500,000 on top of it. By having the NRL pay this to keep him in the game, all of a sudden the Roosters would have another $500,000 to spend and be able to keep Sonny Bill Williams on top of that.

How does that become fair for other teams? How does that stick with the whole principle of the salary cap? It doesn’t.

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Secondly, what’s to say players won’t start saying “oh rugby union are chasing me” just to chisel out a few extra dollars in their salary? No one could be chasing said player, but at the same time the player who would be ‘reportedly’ being chased by another code suddenly is able to get plenty of extra money out of the NRL, when in fact no one was chasing the player.

And then there is the added issue of which club a player goes to. Let’s say the Roosters suddenly decide they don’t want Williams anymore, but the NRL want to keep him in the game and they have six clubs vying for his signature. How do the NRL choose where he goes?

And if Israel Folau decides in the morning he wants to come back to the NRL, how does the NRL decide what club he goes to?

Finally, how is a star that is irreplaceable to the game defined by the NRL? If they spent money on every player who jumped up and down and said another code is chasing them, then the NRL will very quickly learn just how bad a mistake this war chest idea is.

Only a select few superstars would be truly irreplaceable to the game, but where does the NRL draw the line? The NRL will be dealing with some very annoyed and disappointed clubs if say for example they use the war chest on Sam Burgess but let other superstars go to rival codes.

The system of the NRL paying a portion of a superstar’s contract is flawed on many levels, and will only make the NRL go downhill. If the NRL really want to keep stars in the game, raise the salary cap some more.

They probably don’t have the funding to do that at this point in time, but the idea proposed by David Smith last week will never ever work.

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