This is the last instalment of a five-part series on rugby league and its myriad issues.
For the other pieces, check out ‘Be smart about stadiums,’ ‘Reduce or relocate teams,’ ‘Stop selling its soul,’ and ‘Sort out the offseason.’
Every year, in every sport, there are contract dramas. But the dramas in rugby league appear to be completely unique. In what other sport are players signing multi-year contracts 18 months before their current one ends?
In fact, what other sport allows teams to sign players even a few months before it ends?
I always have a little bit of a giggle when I see that someone has signed for a rival club to join them in the distant future. With the number of players that have reneged on contracts in recent years, nothing seems so sure anymore.
Daly Cherry-Evans to the Titans, James Tedesco to the Raiders and Josh Papalii to the Eels are just a handful of contracts that players have signed, only to turn around and decide to remain with their present club.
I don’t even consider future signings seriously anymore until they have actually completed the move.
On the other hand, we have players jumping ship early, such as Moses Mbye and Trent Hodkinson. The whole player movement process seems to be an absolute free-for-all, where anything goes, no contracts are concrete, and any club can talk to any player at any time.
There is a trail of destruction leaving fans angry at sudden departures of their favourite players, coaches uncertain of who they will be coaching, and players risking mentally departing before their contract is up.
The whole thing is insane and needs to end.
So, here are my four suggestions. First, total free agency is not the answer, however, some form of it needs to exist. Players should only be allowed to negotiate with the clubs they are contracted to unless they are given consent to look elsewhere.
Otherwise, they have to wait until the day after grand final day in the last year of their contract before they can begin discussions with other clubs.
(Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Second, player swaps should be permitted up until a set date, for example Round 10, and uncontracted players can sign where they please.
Third, there should also be an equivalent of the NFL’s Injured Reserve. Players who are seriously injured are ‘de-registered’ from that season, where they are still employed by the club but cannot play another game of that season and their salary does not count towards the cap.
It enables clubs to fill their rosters more freely and prevents situations such as what the Eels were in with Anthony Watmough, with his salary crippling the club even though he never played again.
Last is the issue of clubs bearing the brunt of contracts even when the player has left. It nearly destroyed Wests Tigers and there’s every chance it will soon bring down another club. This does exist in other sports, and is tricky to completely eliminate, so there needs to be a cap on the percentage of which a club pays a player currently employed at a different club.
Being neither a lawyer nor an NRL official, what I have suggested in this and previous articles is obviously not perfect but it could be used as a starting point to improve the management and administration of the game. No one would disagree that there are significant issues within the game, and I have attempted to put in my two cents for most of them (notice how over five articles and 3,500 words I’ve never mentioned the Bunker? That’s deliberate).
Perhaps one day the NRL will take heed of the people and implement changes that will keep rugby league not only alive but thriving.
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