Should the NRL use the ‘Parra Papers’ to push for further regime change at the Eels? Fans of other clubs who have been punished for infractions would give a resounding ‘no’.
One of things we heard from supporters in 2002 with Canterbury and again in 2010 with Melbourne – along with all of the less spectacular breaches since – and we are hearing again now is “why should the players be punished?”.
But the principles upon which these things are enforced see only 16 players – the 16 clubs. After all, the players don’t get to climb the competition table on their own each week, do they? The board doesn’t put out its own merchandise. The supporters didn’t join the comp in 1947 and then look for a team to follow.
Lots of things get affected when one of these entities have misfortune – sponsors, fans, individuals, bank balances. But when you invest your time and emotions in a sporting team, that’s what you sign up for.
There are plenty of other pursuits if you can’t stomach your own destiny being in someone else’s hands. All for one, one for all. Individuals, frankly, don’t matter.
The NRL might deal with individuals as it investigates but in the end it has to treat a cheating club like a runner who got a lift on a motorcycle halfway through a marathon. Fans, players and sponsors are just that runner’s fingers and toes.
Here’s where it gets interesting, though.
Can the NRL be treading this well-worn philosophical path and at the same time selectively target individuals in handing down punishment? I don’t think so.
You are either blind to the individual or you are not. You can’t pick and choose. If we’re dealing with the club as a whole, then it’s up to the club to deal with individuals.
If the NRL starts trying to oust individuals then all the other individuals who did nothing wrong then can claim they have been unfairly treated. Suddenly the argument in the second paragraph becomes valid.
“If you want him out, then get him out and leave the rest of us – and our competition points – alone.”
To labour my earlier metaphor to breaking point, you might say many runners in this marathon are getting a lift on a motorcycle when no-one is looking. But from some of the reports about the Eels, they stopped running, stood on the side of the road and held up a giant sign saying “Finish line or bust!”.
When you’re enforcing rules of any sort, anywhere, you have to punish the ones you catch in the hope of discouraging others from doing the wrong thing. Once you have handed down your punishment, it is up to the entity to respond as it sees fit.
I want to draw an important distinction at this point in the argument: of course the NRL has the right to sanction individuals who have acted dishonestly. But the punishment meted out to the club should not be contingent on action taken against individuals. They should be completely separate.
Melbourne were punished as a whole. Canterbury were punished as a hole. In 20 years time no-one will remember who Scott Seward or Steve Sharp were. They’ll just remember the Eels lost X points.
The NRL’s responsibility as it wraps up this investigation over the coming week is to the current competition’s integrity and the sport’s history – not to short-term administrative objectives.
Pot Stirrer
Guest
As i said im not an accountant but you can fix that by changing it from 1 point to 100 points and then have it so 100 points equals $100,000 for example. That would fix the spending part but as you say how do you rate a rep winger against a rep half or forward.
pete bloor
Guest
Could be actually taking time to digest all the information right?
pete bloor
Guest
double
Carlos
Guest
Nah there's a big difference...champ
pete bloor
Guest
Well yes that system is easy to implement, so would be having a random number generator in excel, and falls under my “I can’t think of a worse way”. Though full credit you did make it exponentially worse by introducing a forced ranking system and the fan vote. It also doesn’t really do anything to control costs, which again is the primary objective of a salary cap. The forced ranking assumes that the gap between number 10 and 30 is the same as between 310 to 330 and that the gap is consistent each year. Now you could build some kind of distribution curve (as I imagine the gap between players 300 and 400 is nigh on negligible and you tail out as you get to 1). But again how do you establish that curve given the quality of non market objective valuations we have? You then have fans vote on it. Here I was worried that the paid committee wouldn’t be fully across the value of player (which is theoretically different to each club) especially those that had never played NRL, but you want a guy in Balmain to have an opinion on the value of an 18 year old from Townsville they have never in their life seen play football? That’s beyond a bad plan that’s just sheer lunacy. And you still don’t tackle the contract issue, are we going to have a 1 year, 2 year, 3 year rankings etc or are we going to have an annual free for all with every player getting re-ranked and then reassigned to a new club each season? On the disclosure this has been raised before and fundamentally rejected by the RLFPA. So is it a point worth risking industrial action over?
pete bloor
Guest
I think the issue here is the capacity to pay right? Given the clubs most likely to get into trouble (based on form) are going to be bailed out by the NRL it creates a bit of a moral hazard. Where as the NBA teams are worth far more than the potential tax payments and owned by billionaires.
turbodewd
Guest
The NRL seems to be taking a long time to deal out the punishment to the Eels....
bear54
But the market is not equal. Clubs like Canberra have to pay higher to attract players because of their location. The Broncos attract players because their club is a conduit to Queensland and Australian jerseys & pay cheques specifically when Bennett is at the helm. The same cannot be said of at least 12 sides in the NRL.
bear54
The clubs can't just go broke because the NRL needs 8 games per weekend for 26 weeks to service the broadcasting agreement which funds the grants.
bear54
Clubs like Cronulla, Wests Tigers and the Gold Coast will spend 300% and into extinction. Even with the salary cap numerous club administrators can't help overspending so what do you think would happen without the cap?
McNaulty
Roar Rookie
The notional value solves the main problem with the cap. That is eliminates suspicion, manipulation and confusion. You could "let the market decide" and then declare the individual contracts (reported where anyone can just go do the calculations as with NBA and NFL) except that, as has been shown in the past, those contract can just be falsified.
turbodewd
Guest
Mate, why assign a notional value at all?! Let the market decide. The market knows the true value of a player...and suffers the consequences if they get it wrong. If the wrong value is assigned to a player he wont get hired by the team if he is too expensive.
McNaulty
Roar Rookie
Its easy Pete, you establish the value each year by ranking the top 400 playing from 1 to 400. JT is worth $1.2m and minimum wage is $100k. Each club must have 25 players on their list. Ranking the players would be formalised by a committee each year. But the public would have a say - there are numerous top 100 lists each year. That would be easy. I am not saying there would not be arguments about the values, but thats just part of the fun. The system would solve the biggest problems with the Salary Cap that is cheating, lack of transparency and confusion. Build in some exemptions such as loyalty discounts etc again publish these on a website As for my point 5 I would add that the actual amount that players are paid should be published so they are public knowledge in the same way NBA & NFL contracts are published. If clubs are overspending the members can vote about it or the club can just go broke.
pete bloor
Guest
Again if it doesn't cap cost it doesn't fulfil the main objective of a salary cap. But parking that fundamental issue how do you establish that value? The stats collected in nrl aren't great for generating on individual field valuations and the nrl isn't exactly sporting a decent quant team to build the valuation model or maintain it. So then it would just be an opinion of an nrl committee, I can't think of a worse way to assign a value than having one group give a precise assessment of future value when they don't actually build football teams. If you asked for an honest assessment of the exact value for next year of x player from each team you'll get 16 different figures (which is how a market price works right the person with the capacity to pay that who sees greatest value sets the price) so I can't see an nrl committee getting that right. You can't just canvass the clubs because that's just going to be some delicious game theory. If I know a particular team needs a half back then I just add 20% to every half back right to hamstring them. Then unless we are going a rotating door and every player is on a 1 year contract you need to have a dynamic value where the average value changes over the life of the contract. Ie a 5 year value for a 32 year old has to be less than a 2 year but the inverse for a 24 year old right. So we could do static valuations, they'd just be as reliable as plucking numbers from someone's colon. And the wealthier teams would (or should) build in house valuation teams that just look to game the system
McNaulty
Roar Rookie
1. Assign each player a notional value - starting with best player Thurston worth 1.2 mill (for example); 2. Publish list on NRL.com; 3. Set cap at whatever - say $9 mill; 4. Team top 20 players must be under the cap based on notional value; 5. It doesn't matter what the player is actually paid.
Graeme
Guest
Why not have a soft cap like NBA. You are free to go over the cap, but you pay a tax for doing so that is then distributed to the other clubs that managed to stay under. The tax increases the more you are over the cap, and increases if you are over the cap for multiple years in a row
daniel p
Guest
You can the rorting eels to that list champ.
daniel p
Guest
As a Melbourne supporter this just means that we should not hear any more crap from the eels supporters about the 2009 premiership! There's not many teams that have never broken the salary cap.
pete bloor
Guest
Because it doesn't control cost, the first objective of the cap. Examination over.
pete bloor
Guest
This sounds less like professional sport and more like my old local social basketball comps restrictions. The assumption that all rep players are the same is odd. I thought everyone was saying Pearce isn't Thurston but now apparently Nathan Merritt was basically jt. Home grown is odd as it means if you didn't grow up in a catchment area of a club you are banned from professional league sensational idea. And if we're trotting out up 17 Holden cup players during origin who is playing Holden cup? The chosen thing will be obviously happening. It will just be the club with the biggest catchment area right?