Everything is not fine: Ricky Stuart’s punishment confirms the NRL’s financial penalties are a joke

In handing down Ricky Stuart’s punishment last week – the Raiders coach getting a $25,000 fine and a week-long suspension for… look, I don’t want to go into it again, just read Ben Pobjie, he nailed the whole thing – Andrew Abdo made a comment that highlighted the deep flaws in the NRL’s fine system.

“This will be a full suspension precluding Ricky from having any involvement with any club activity either in person or remotely. Furthermore, the fine must not be paid by the club but by Ricky himself,” the NRL CEO said.

Just in case you didn’t catch the part that undermines the entire concept of the NRL using fines to keep players and coaches in check, I’ll highlight the passage for you: “the fine must not be paid by the club but by Ricky himself”.

Why would you need to clarify that? Unless, do clubs pay these fines?

Of course they do. It’s so broadly acknowledged that I don’t think we can even call it an open secret.

Phil Gould shared a story a few years ago about an incident during his time as Roosters coach in the 1990s, when he performed an act of brinksmanship mid-game to protest his team possibly losing.

(His team didn’t end up losing, of course, because Gus’ teams never lose in his stories, but I digress.)

“Nick came bouncing into the dressing-room hugging me,” Gould recalled.

“I hadn’t spoken to the journos yet. ‘Say whatever you want about the refs, baby!’ he said. ‘I’ll pay all the fines!’”

If you haven’t worked it out, the Nick in question is Roosters chairman Nick Politis, one of the wealthiest humans on the planet.

The point I’m driving at is that the NRL using the threat of financial penalty to keep coaches in check is totally redundant if, when the fine is handed down, a billionaire scrapes around down the back of his couch to make it go away.

And it’s not like the Chooks are the only club that have a wealthy benefactor to ensure financial punishments are blown off like the dust they are. Between private owners with obscene bank balances, pokie-rich leagues clubs, and sponsors who maintain arm’s length distance, you’d be hard pressed to find a single NRL club that can’t ensure the tab is picked up when a fine is handed down.

Why else would the chief executive of the entire game have to say that “Ricky himself” will pay this particular fine?

(Photo by Mark Evans/Getty Images)

Just to clarify, Abdo wasn’t talking off the cuff – accidentally saying something that he would later regret – the line about Stuart forking out the $25K was a pre-written quote from the NRL’s approved media release.

However, when he was talking off the cuff, Abdo drew further attention to the poor execution of the game’s fine system.

Asked by the media how he could ensure Stuart would not be coaching his team from afar during his week-long suspension, Abdo was suddenly certain of the integrity of the NRL’s punishments.

“Our default position is that everyone understands and accepts the rules and any sanctions that were imposed,” Abdo said, according to AAP.

“We obviously have systems and controls in place.

“We have an integrity unit, we have a salary cap team, and we’re confident that everyone understands the seriousness of this.

“I don’t have any concerns at this particular point in time that our systems will not be able to prevent anything potentially going around what we’ve issued.”

If Abdo is confident that Ricky and the Raiders will respect the week-long ban, because there are “systems and controls in place”, then why does he need to clarify that Stuart is going pay this fine?

Don’t your systems and controls ensure all fines are paid by the offending individual?

No, of course not.

Because the entire NRL fine system is a joke.

Setting aside how often a fine is paid by someone else – again, apparently regularly enough that the CEO wants to trumpet the one occasion it doesn’t happen – the fine system for players is totally skewed.

According to the News Corp’s recently released list of highest paid players (which is not to be taken as gospel, but it’s probably close), the highest paid player in the game, Nathan Cleary, is on $1.3 million a year.

Nathan Cleary. (Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)

Meanwhile, minimum wage for a top-30 squad member – such as Cleary’s teammate Liam Henry – is about $80,000.

The NRL’s player fine system ranges from hundreds to thousands, with the maximum to date that I could find being $4500 to Josh McGuire (more on him in a moment) for contrary conduct.

Now, $4500 is nothing to sneeze at, unless you’re on $1.3 million, which represents about 0.3 per cent of Cleary’s annual wage. However, if Henry was whacked with the same fine, that would be almost 6 per cent of his yearly earnings, or a whopping three weeks’ wages.

How is that fair? And not just how is it fair to Henry, how is it fair to the players on every other team, for whom Cleary can – not necessarily will, but can – commit acts of foul play with the only deterrent being losing a drop of water in his financial ocean?

Perhaps Jared Waerea-Hargreaves is a better example, given he stumps up a few grand in fines seemingly every year, having apparently never learnt the lesson that playing like a thug is against the rules.

And why would he learn a lesson? Big fella’s on a reported $700,000 a year, he can afford to play however he wants – and that’s assuming Politis isn’t bouncing into the dressing room after JWH slams his forearm into Liam Fulton’s head, telling the Kiwi standover man, “Slam whoever’s head you want, baby, I’ll pay all the fines!”

Now, the NRL has made some attempt to square up this imbalance when it comes to off-field issues of late, with offending players’ fines being adjusted according to what they earn and their level of recidivism, the best example being the Dragons players who went to Paul Vaughan’s 2021 barbecue.

Paul Vaughan (Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Top earners and serial idiots Vaughan and Corey Norman received the stiffest penalty, of $50,000, while cleanskin and minimum-wage earner Gerard Beale only had to part with $2000.

However, Josh McGuire’s $12,000 penalty was equal-third-smallest of all offenders, despite the fact he was on a contract struck at a time when he was an incumbent Queensland and Australian player.

So, why did he get off lightly?

Because McGuire’s fine was based only on the amount he was being paid by St George Illawarra, despite the fact his total salary was being heavily subsidised by his former club, North Queensland.

Did no one at NRL HQ see how stupid that was – or that it stood out like dogs’ balls that established rep player McGuire was being slugged the same amount as journeyman Tyrell Fuimaono?

So the NRL have a fine system in which off-field incidents are on a sliding scale depending on your wage, unless you are getting part of it from another club in which case that chunk is off-limits; on-field issues are heavily weighted to favour players who already earn the big bucks; and all penalties can apparently be paid by someone else, unless head office makes an official decree saying, “No, not this specific time.”

I get that keeping fines on the up and up is going to be tricky, but having a system you can’t – and apparently overwhelmingly don’t – enforce is pointless.

Yet the NRL is so gung-ho about their fine system being the way to keep people on the straight and narrow that this year they basically made it so State of Origin players only get fines for on-field issues in the interstate series, in yet another example of the elite being permitted to pay to break the rules of the game that are primarily designed to keep their opponents safe.

So, what’s to be done? Well, first and foremost, fines for players need to be a percentage of their earnings rather than a set amount. Yes, that means salaries will be made public – and good, it’s ridiculous that in a competition that has a salary cap, we still keep specific earnings secret.

Secondly, your fines are determined by your whole-of-game salary (obviously not including third-party deals and sponsorships), so if you’re still getting paid by a former club, that’s factored in too. And, again, wow that we need to even clarify that one.

Finally, when it comes to who reaches into their pocket after a misdemeanour, how about the NRL ensures – given they’ve got all these awesome systems and controls in place – the person who did the crime pays the fine?