Do we have a cap or don’t we? How this third party arrangement is supposed to work really baffles me and I hope the punters can help me out on this.
So the Parramatta saga continues and I have to stick it to the NRL here because this has gone on way too long.
There has been plenty of hyperbole running around in media based on very little factual information. Also, where exactly are all these leaks coming from to the newspapers? Do they Sydney papers have a mole inside the NRL investigation unit?
So we have a salary cap that is supposedly there to keep a level playing field. In reality it means that clubs don’t have to sponsor junior talent anymore because loyalty died with the Super League war.
Now we have a poach-athon going on every pre, mid and post-season. Clubs that nurture the talent through the grades don’t have any incentive to continue to do so as they reap no benefit for bringing a junior through as they are at the same mercy of the cap as every other club.
So third party deals or payments are supposed to have absolutely nothing to do with and can not be organised by a club. This is something the Eels are supposed to be in trouble for doing. Please tell me how exactly is that supposed to happen in reality?
Let’s look at a hypothetical in the Kieran Foran contract with Parramatta. So the Eels coach and management sit down and decide they want to make a run at Foran. They look at the cap and decide they can spend say up to 900k over four years without going over.
After some back and forth behind closed doors with Foran’s manager they realise that 900k is not at the market rate to drag the Eagle away from Manly and that likely another 300k is needed to get him to move.
What is supposed to happen now?
Is the process supposed to be now that Parramatta now leaks to the media that they are in strong negotiations with Foran’s management and now sit back and wait for a random third party, such as a rich Parra fan, to come along and offer Foran an extra 300k to move to Parra?
Is that it? Or what am I missing here?
You can’t tell me that every single marquee player signed to a club involving large third party deals such as Foran, Cherry-Evans, Sam Burgess, Sonny Bill Williams, Roger Tuivasa-Sheck, Greg Inglis, the Melbourne Trio, Johnathan Thurston and who ever else, went through without the club having some sort of involvement in the negotiation of those third party deals to be registered with the NRL.
If you believe that then I have some very special snake oil to sell you.
Now the Eels have been pretty transparent it seems since the flags started to be raised about Scott Seward and the previous few years during and after the departure of Ricky Stuart.
They currently have a four-point penalty deduction hanging over their heads as a result. While the new revelations are hard to decipher with newspapers ready to print what ever they like and quite willing to try and infer that Parramatta is some how involved with the Panama papers just to get a click.
All I can understand so far is that the former CEO was involved in organising part of the third party deals.
Please don’t tell me that Parramatta is being compared to Melbourne and the Bulldogs for that, or what exactly am I missing here?
The third party deals framework needs to be reformed, and soon.
The Barry
Roar Guru
1. Ok 2. They didn't try to hide their minor breaches - but let's forget those. They certainly have been hiding the majors. 3. I mean the major breaches. Forget the minors. All clubs have those. Although five in six years is certainly pushing it. 4. Ditto. The sanctions hanging over their heads don't relate to the minor breaches. 5. Get a link yourself...that's the whole point of this matter and why they have a four point suspended penalty. If you need me to provide a link you don't know what's going on. 6. Doesn't matter. You can't separate Seward from the Eels. If Seward was cheating, the Eels were cheating. 7. There are board minutes detailing how they were going to provide corporate facilities and hospitality to TPAs.
Chris Love
Roar Guru
1. Correct. Continued infractions brought this on. 2. Caught implies they were hiding something, they didn't try to hide anything with the previous breaches. 3. Are you talking about the previous years or the current investigation? If the former incorrect. 4. Exactly they were caught, the previous fines were for mismanagement but it wasn't hidden. 5. Link please. 6. Agree, Seward was on their books at the time and was obviously up to something dodgy. But what we don't know yet was the club and board part of a systemic cheating program like storm and Dogs. 7. What evidence?
pete bloor
Guest
agree that it should be paid for an actual service, and it is supposed to be but the issue there is you can just get someone being paid for attending a bunch of dinners right as appearance fees are common place. Disagree that the NRL is entitled to a cut in anyway shape or form, especially on top of having wage restraint in the form of the cap. Not sure you are going to be able to get the full personal finances thing over the line as they've already tried that.
The Barry
Roar Guru
So many things wrong with this post: 1. Yes again. They have a four point suspended penalty hanging over their heads from last year. That's not getting into the other years of minor breaches. 2. How they were caught - whether by auditor or otherwise - is irrelevant. 3. Yes the Eels breaches were behind closed doors. Of course they were. We're talking about deliberate and systematic attempts to breach the cap, not an accidental breach of the tier two cap or some other trivial infraction. 4. The dogs and storm weren't caught by auditors. The breaches were identified by whistleblowers. It's almost impossible for an auditor to find breaches when clubs are deliberately hiding them. But as I said the way they were caught is irrelevant. 5. A lot of clubs report irregularities. When the NRL investigated they found more than what was reported. 6. What action the board did or didn't take against Seward is irrelevant in determining whether the Eels are guilty or not. 7. Your implication that Seward is somehow separate from the club and should shoulder the blame on his own is ridiculous. There's evidence that the board were aware of the breaches long before they reported anything. Regardless Seward was acting in his capacity as Eels CEO. Any punishment is handed down to the club.
The Barry
Roar Guru
Your comments indicate that you, like Seward, don't understand how TPAs work. Clubs are allowed to introduce interested TPAs to players but then cant be part of the process going forward. They can't guarantee amounts. The TPAs can't be club sponsors and the club can't offer the TPAs incentives such as the offer of corporate facilities for games. That's what Parramatta are being accused of breaching. So no good blaming the tooth fairy. Twice. So yes, nous and relationship skills are important.
Carlos
Guest
The salary cap should be scrapped because it just doesn't work as some clubs appear to be more equal under it than others. If a full forensic audit was done I'd happily wager that Melbourne's GF wins wouldn't be the only blanks. All the cap seems to do is entrench the advantage of richer clubs and provide endless distraction for these ridiculous scandals. If you want your team to win the comp you need them to break the cap. Stick to the cap you can hope for making the 8. Otherwise you need a starting team with the quality and depth like the Roosters, Cowboys or Rabbitohs in recent years or the Broncos have this year... i.e You need to be recruiting and retaining players without the restriction of the cap otherwise the 'building' we always hear about is something more akin to making sandcastles than dynasties. Im sick of hearing that we need the cap to stop clubs from going broke too. What are they children? Maybe if some clubs can't compete they shouldn't be in the competition. I'm a Jets fan they shouldn't be in the NRL.
Chris Love
Roar Guru
Forgot to add TB. If you are hiring a CEO for a club that has nous, and relationship skills for making TPA deals work successfully for your club, then your club is doing EXACTLY what Parramatta is allegedly accused of doing! And that is the point of my article. Every club has CEO's or whoever doing exactly that, it's just somehow we are meant to believe a magical TPA tooth fairy is hooking up potential sponsors for players to move from one club to the next and these TPA's have in the large nothing to do with the club. Seems Seward didn't donate to the TPA tooth fairy Union for the last few years and had to do the legwork himself.
Chris Love
Roar Guru
TB caught again? you're talking there like some NRL auditor caught them in the act the previous years and now has done so again. Just like umpteen other clubs have been fined or sanctioned over the past 15 years there's plenty of reasons teams breach the cap and Parramatta were obviously bad managers of this and were fined accordingly. But it wasn't like these previous breaches were behind closed doors and an NRL auditor caught them with their hands in the cookie jar like the Dogs or the Storm and has done so again here. When this audit began it was on the back of Parramatta self reporting irregularities and as a governance issue for the previously upfront breaches of the cap. Now if the same board that reported these so called irregularities and sacked Seward actually knew what Seward was up to and paid him out the back door to fall on his sword quietly and sneak off into the past or similar I could totally get where your attitude is coming from. As yet no such evidence exists.
Emcie
Roar Guru
The thing with third party agreements outside of the cap is that you'll find that 90% of the total money made comes from the top 10% of players. It's not an even distribution for players so looking at a club level distribution would be misleading at best
Edward Kelly
Roar Guru
Adam from your link: "Many players have third party agreements that are outside the salary cap. Individual players registered third party agreements totaling in excess of $15 million in 2015." I found the "in excess" interesting. Many would also be interested in the distribution per club of these deals. Who really are the winners and losers in 3rd party agreements.
Edward Kelly
Roar Guru
Brisbane is a cash cow the Broncos are sucking for every dollar of advantage they can get. Time of another team in Brisbane!
Matth
Guest
Just have an independent tribunal rate all ego steered players into categories and allocate points. Each club has a set amount of points to spend. Then the $$ become irrelevant. The richer clubs can pay overs to keep the marquee players they want, but they will be limited to the same number of total points as everyone else. And the pints get discounted for either local juniors or 7 year + club players. This encourages junior development player loyalty as a strategic advantage.
Matth
Guest
And no one ever believes it and just assumes the well run clubs must be over the cap
eagleJack
Roar Guru
Same thing happens in the NRL. Players regularly stay for less or go elsewhere for less due to coaching, club structures etc etc.
Dean - Surry Hills
Guest
Bingo!
Jacko
Guest
I believe that a seperate body should pay the wages of players including TPA. If a player is registered at 800kand has a 200k TPA then thats what the player gets paid. Grants from the NRL which usually go to clubs should go to the seperate body where it is distributed from there. That way if a player is fount to be recieving any extra's like cash or boats etc then the player will know it is wrong and then the player can be punished. and if some CEO negotiates a bonus for a player then the player is again taking a risk of bans etc from the game including fines etc for breaking the rules.
The Barry
Roar Guru
It depends who's paying the cash... You don't need brown paper bags full of cash or boats or pay offs to make TPA deals work successfully for you. Just a bit of nous and some relationship skills. If your club is hiring a CEO without those traits then TPAs are the least of your problems.
Geoff Foley
Roar Rookie
Third party payments are distorting the competition though. Clubs and their business backers who have more money than another can pay over the odds for the top players and still fit them within the salary cap. Either all third payments come in to the cap or no payments at all. Yes this means the salary cap will need to go up a lot, but it means a more equal comp. Surely people here want an even competition where the clubs based in smaller business communities like Canberra, Newcastle, Wests, Cronulla etc can actually compete regularly for the top players against Brisbane, Souths, Manly, Melbourne etc.
Geoff Foley
Roar Rookie
That's not a bad idea at all actually- something akin to the equalisation assistance in the AFL. Deserves a thorough look that one. Also, I'm not trying to block players earning what they are entitled to- the salary cap does need to be increased significantly to avoid temptation for third party payments. But they also shouldn't be receiving more than they should be solely by virtue of one business community's ability to pay more than any other.
Parrafan
Guest
They can guarantee up to $600k under the marquee player allowance. The problem is the salary cap rules are not simple to read and understand. Many league commentators don't understand them and pass on this misunderstanding and lack of knowledge to their readers.