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!
pete bloor
Guest
But hey those be facts
pete bloor
Guest
Of course tpas are worse than contracted revenue that's basic logic. I still struggle to see the panacea of making the part that hasn't been used to subvert the cap public. But if the guy gunning for the job of the club just punished is all for it I'm sure it's for altruistic reasons
no one in particular
Roar Guru
They can't. They need to negotiate with the useless NRLPA over it to have it included in the next CBA
Dogs Of War
Roar Guru
Well smarter people than me believe this is the way to go as well. Bernie Gurr for one. At the moment we have players getting $250K on the books, and $400K off them. A good example is how the Bulldogs structured Andrew Fiftita's contract which was then pulled off the table when Fifita got angry with how little was under the salary cap in the TPA section. More players would demand that the majority of there salary be on the books if made public as the illusion is that they are part of the deception if they don't.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I don't understand how the NRL could legally disclose a player's salary. Like an employment contract, this is confidential. I don't want my co-workers knowing what I earn and I imagine most footballers would be the same. And it still doesn't resolve the problem anyway as its not actually teams paying over the cap. It's payments trying to be made around the cap, which still would not be disclosed. Also teams with more sponsors cannot offer more TPA's. If a company is a sponsor their TPA is included in the cap.
pete bloor
Guest
Okay I can see how that is of interest, as yes I'd love to know who my team has over or underpaid, how much is coming off in any given year etc. But it can't do anything to stop breaking the rules when they are generally broken by TPA's or out of contract payments?
Dogs Of War
Roar Guru
The TPA's part is different. As long as we all understand player X is on Y salary, and player Z is on W salary and they play the same position etc, you get to compare the relative value of the contracts. The NRL can see this, but the general public can't. I don't really care what players get as TPA's, that's there business, but what they get under the cap is very important.
pete bloor
Guest
Sorry by "most" I mean regular players which lets be honest is the point at which we've got an issue in the NRL. I don't think Parra is in trouble because of 500k being paid to some 22 year old that hasn't taken the field yet.
pete bloor
Guest
Assuming you mean the US, I can only really talk to NFL and NBA but both would see most players have some kind of third party deals even if it is just home town restaurant chain or a car yard. It being a smaller percentage is valid point, so being able to use it is limited but widely accepted, but the fact still remains picking up the US model and applying it to the NRL wouldn't capture TPA's. That is before noticing that the NRL needs to negotiate to get the power to make these disclosures (the US leagues do it through the CBA's as it's basically required to facilitate player trading)
Fiddlesticks
Guest
Yeah but most people don't have TPA. It's only a small fraction of the market and theoretically separate from the cap
pete bloor
Guest
I'm not sure that does solve the issue as TPA's don't fall under the "contract" (they actually can't). Also in the US fans don't whine as much about some teams being able to get more marketing dollars that's just an accepted reality. So unless we are having issues with teams forgetting to carry the 2 when adding up their stated contract values I'm not sure that there is much this would preempt. I sadly think it is club Integrity. At some point we need to consider after 4 scandals that he NRL clubs as a group have a problem with integrity at the top end. this isn't to say the other 12 teams have done something but lets face it the penalties aren't really a deterrent to anyone looking at a 5-10 year period of performance so we need to better vet and hold accountable club management. If 25% of your clubs have been run by morally bankrupt stains on society whose obituary will make the world a better place then we need to look at the game at some point right?
pete bloor
Guest
The problem here is that making third party agreements public then makes information that third parties to the game don’t want public. I know very few organisations that would be happy to see all commercial terms to these agreements put on the internet for competitors and other contractors to see, or for them to basically now accept the NRL as a regulating body presumably with auditing powers. That is before considering that the NRL can’t compel the players to have their salaries made public. They need to negotiate this kind of disclosure with the players association and I think it has come up before and been rejected.
pete bloor
Guest
This notion that it is happening in the US is misguided - in the US they don't have to disclose the terms of their TPA's. Remember when there was conjecture about LeBron having an escalator in his Nike contract based on market size? No one knew what it was or if it was true right. That's why market size used to matter so much for free agency as it changed your earning potential outside of the cap.
pete bloor
Guest
Not true players do not have to reveal how their third party agreements work. None of the issues would really be solved by the head line salary being made public.
Dogs Of War
Roar Guru
The only way to fix things is to have players salaries openly displayed. Players will then not want the majority of there contracts made up of TPA's, and fans will be able to see what is going on with players getting paid unders. US sports do it, so why not Australian sports?
MAX
Guest
Ralph, you have given us food for thought. The open cash book in all governance entities, from federal government to football club,is a dream beyond reality, yet would help expose fraudulent activity at its source with the appropriate internal audit in operation.
peeeko
Guest
agree on the transparency, it happens in USA sports and its great. as well as transparency it will stop the rumour spreading that goes on in sydney "journalism" and kerbs the behaviour of unscrupulous managers
Matt
Guest
Good call on the transparency side of things - ideally the salary cap should be easily understood and every single player payment made public, just like they do in the NFL. That way we don't have this unsightly guessing game where nobody really knows how much room teams still have under the cap and what TPAs are floating around. I don't agree with you on the draft though, there should be better rewards for clubs producing juniors than we have now. Imagine how some of the great teams of the past would be blown apart under the current salary cap system.