NRL chief executive David Gallop has accused player managers of hijacking the league’s push for players and agents to be made accountable for the contracts they sign.
With a new rule stating new contracts must be accompanied by a statutory declaration from the player, his manager and club chief executives put on hold while the Rugby League Players Association reviews the guideline, Gallop said the only people who had reason to worry were those who had something to hide.
“Pretty cleary the player agents have hijacked the situation and they’ve hijacked the players association effectively,” Gallop said.
“We haven’t heard from them (player agents) until we inserted a guideline which threatens their opportunity to cheat.”
While Gallop admitted the clause demanding statutory declarations may have been hastily imposed, he said it was done so to include many of the players who are in the process of signing new deals at the moment.
The RLPA were on Tuesday given five days to review the guidelines.
“Everyone came out of the Melbourne situation – including the player agents … with an acceptance that we don’t want to see a repeat of it,” Gallop said.
“Greater transparency and greater accountability on the individuals who are part of the negotiations will be a step closer to ensuring people don’t cheat.
“If you’re not prepared to say `yes, this is the true picture,’ then you’ve obviously got something to hide.
“We’ll give the players association an opportunity to tell us why we shouldn’t have a system where the parties to the playing contract are prepared to say `this is what the player is really getting paid, it’s the fair dinkum contract amount, not some other amount which is not in the contract, which is the situation we dealt with in Melbourne.”
Gallop said he was happy to talk to the Players Agent Association, but denied he was obliged to consult them before moving forward with the new guideline.
sheek
Guest
P.Tah, In light of not being able to suggest an alternative, I guess we're stuck with player's agents.
Farqwar
Guest
Scchhhh.....could you please keep it down a bit!
cookee
Guest
SHEEK,EX REDS COACH PHIL MOONEY WOULD MAKE A GOOD AGENT WITH ANOTHER LOSS FOR OTAGO MAKING THAT NIL FROM FOUR HE WOULDNT BE A LEECH.
P.Tah
Guest
Sheek I guess you're not going to be invited to the player agents Christmas party this year :) As I understand it, the player agents receive a percentage of the salary they negotiate for their player. Perhaps the answer is to disconnect the agent's salary from the player's and stipulate that the agents can only recevieve a flat fee that is not linked to the salary they negotiate. Not sure how you could stipulate the payment method, perhaps its could be a clause in receiving accrediation as a player agent.
sheek
Guest
Player agents are a blight on the game. They are also one of nature's jokes on society. Say 40 years ago, a young bush kid might be tricked into signing with a big city club secretary for 'peanuts'. Today, the pendulum has swung too far the other way, with player's agents making a nuisance of themselves & to any & every sport with their underhand tricks. Either way, most players still lose out. Player's agents are like leeches sucking the life-blood out of everyone & everything. But they're here with us now & almost impossible to get rid of.
oikee
Guest
Dazz, i dont know if you are a Storm fan, but you need to chill out. The Storm are the second biggest brand in rugby league. They are a well known product, so wont be going anywhere. Lessons learned by the reintroduction of Souths, and soon to be Bears and maybe Perth Reds. The salary cap has worked, all clubs are safe now, they just need to keep building. A couple of Sydney teams might decide to move, but its up to them to realise opportunities. The game is looking good, the Commission will take the game forward. Gallop is just warning these agents that in a years time, they will come under pressure from the main body, so he is warning them in advance. Its like when people knock off stuff, the shop puts up a warning sign, they get warned before they get banged up.
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
Gallop holds all the cards over the agents. He says "sign the stat dec" and if the agents refuse and/or advise their clients to refuse then he can reasonably refuse to deal with the agent. The NRL has an accredited agent system, thus refusal to comply with the NRL's documentary requirements would be fair grounds to revoke or refuse accreditation. The players are unlikely to take up their option of withdrawing their labour, as a) They are unlikely to find employment elsewhere that would pay as much and have such a sought after lifestyle, and b) There are relatively few options to switch codes or go to the UK. If they want the bucks, they need to come to the table and negotiate in good faith. It is a simplistic method to control some of the rorting, but not onerous or difficult to implement, so I think that it is actually a good idea and would place an emphasis on the area where a lot of people believe there has been little scrutiny, the involvement in the salary cap rorts by players and their managers.
Brett McKay
Guest
on this particular issue, I think Gallop's got a point...
Daren Weippert
Roar Rookie
OMG, player agents are lawyers, and lawyers are being dishonest!?!?! Say it isn't so!!! Again Gallop is creating a smoke screen to cover for his administration's incompetence and the incompetence of the NRL auditors, who signed off on the Storm's budget for five years, only to end up with egg on their face after being tipped off by a former Storm employee with a grudge, or else they would have been none the wiser. I don't object to this in principle, I agree that it is a good idea for transparency and accountability. However it is still only putting a band-aid on a bullet wound. The real problem is the salary cap in its current form. It does not work and it needs to be scrapped completely and reworked into something that does. Gallop refuses to face this. He does not want to admit he is wrong about the cap. He doesn't want to admit that the NRL system that fails to reward teams discovering and developing talent and assisting them in keeping them. The Storm got caught doing what the other 15 clubs are doing, they just got caught (and they were only caught because a former insider tipped the NRL off, it could happen to your team). All teams are finding ways to keep their players on their roster, legally or otherwise. They don't want the talent that they put so much into going over seas or worse ending up playing against them. Before folks start shouting down about how "extensive" the deception was, why not wait until ALL of the clubs are so closely scrutinized, and so thoroughly audited. Put down your stones and gently close the doors to your glass houses because you would have to be incredibly naive to believe that in a competitive professional business that everyone isn't doing EVERYTHING and ANYTHING for any advantage they can get. Gallop needs to "nut up" and admit the problem, and allow the clubs, the players association and the new Independent Commission sort out an equitable solution for all involved. By sticking his head in the sand, denying the problem and trying to distract people with his little quick fixes, he is avoiding the real problem and he is fooling no one but himself!