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Show me someone who completely understands the inner workings of the NRL’s salary cap and I’ll show you a bloke hosting a party in a phone booth.
In light of Parramatta’s punishment for blatantly cheating the cap and the history associated with Melbourne and Canterbury, the time has arrived for total transparency when it comes to what players earn in the NRL.
I mean a complete reveal.
Player salaries, third party agreements, second-tier salary caps, the whole box and dice.
Fallout from the Parra salary cap scandal
» Parramatta only broke the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not get caught
» Why Tuesday was the greatest day in Parra’s recent history
» Parramatta fans don’t deserve Parramatta’s boardroom
» Parramatta need to bring back The Emperor
» The Parramatta Five win first court battle against NRL
» Press conference: Parra breached the cap by $3 million, players may be investigated
» Parramatta docked 12 points, fined $1 million for salary cap breaches
It will end media speculation and the toss-up telephone number figures which get thrown about like confetti every time a star player is off-contract. Fans will have a better understanding of how it works when it comes to assembling a roster and administrators a better chance of catching the rorters.
It won’t put an end to the “paper bag” payments, because cheaters are going to to cheat.
Let’s face it, the only way the Bulldogs, Storm and Eels got caught was because of a whistle-blower in each case, so there is no perfect solution.
However, there has to be a way to simplify the process and make it clearer to all the major stakeholders in the game.
Open the books. The disclosure of salaries would make every club more accountable and diligent in regards to player payments.
The salary cap has always been the NRL’s problem child and they have applied too many band-aid solutions over the years in an attempt to make it work.
Years ago, when it was introduced in the old days of the NSWRL it was supposed to work hand in hand with the player draft – as it does with most other professional sports around the world.
Terry Hill put a stop to that when he challenged legalities of it in court.
Third party agreements were introduced as way of helping clubs to hold onto ‘marquee players’ and top up their salaries in a bid to stop them jumping ship to rival codes, but the trouble is, it created a false economy.
Richer clubs with more sponsors are able to up the ante with TPAs in order to keep their best talent, whereas the poorer clubs are forced to find more money under the salary cap and pay ‘overs’ to attract players because they can’t match the TPAs offered by rival teams.
Unfortunately, through the weakness of the RLPA the draft concept has never been properly revisited – purely based on fear around the precedent set in the courts. It could all be solved if every contracted player in the NRL signed an agreement not to challenge the draft system.
You only have to look at what interest a draft creates in the NFL, NBA and AFL to see it is clearly a missed promotional opportunity for the NRL – not to mention the spread of future talent and salary cap management assistance.
A working draft, alongside an open book salary cap policy is a much better solution than the cloak and dagger stuff we’ve been forced to put up with in recent years.
The time has come for the NRL to show us the money!
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