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Fed-up clubs are resorting to threats of a possible yet highly unlikely repeat of the Super League breakaway competition as the funding feud with the ARL Commission gets even uglier.
ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo have aborted plans to fly to the UK for the World Cup final as the stalemate with the clubs and RLPA drags on past the November 1 start of the league’s financial year.
According to a NewsCorp report, Panthers chief executive Brian Fletcher and several other club bosses are warning head office that with the licences expiring at the end of next season, the threat of rebel clubs forming a breakaway competition could not be ruled out.
“We won’t be dictated to,” Fletcher warned in his Daily Telegraph interview. “Peter has got to realise we need some answers and we need some transparency.
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“We put on the show but we never see anything. It’s actually deplorable. Show us the figures. It’s hard to support them when you think they are robbing you.”
Andrew Abdo. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images)
Dolphins coach Wayne Bennett says a mooted breakaway rebel league outside of NRL jurisdiction “won’t happen” and predicts the 17 clubs, RLPA and NRL hierarchy will eventually smoke the peace pipe.
Speaking at the Dolphins’ historic first day of pre-season training, Bennett knows what a breakaway league looks like. He was a key figure in the Super League war where Brisbane were an integral part of the new competition, but he said talk of another episode was wide of the mark.
“That’s rubbish,” Bennett said. “I only heard three months ago that the CBA was on again. Every time they have the CBA, there’s drama. But at the end of the day, we will get it all together and there will be one competition next year. They will sort it all out.”
At the centre of the dispute is the fact that the NRL has not been able to strike a deal with the RLPA on a new collective bargaining agreement with the players despite months of negotiations.
The clubs are yet to be informed of the salary cap for the 2023 season and they do not know how much they will be funded from the NRL for the next 12 months and beyond.
They want $5 million each on top of whatever the salary cap figure ends up being.
Several clubs are known to be frustrated over the drawn-out nature of talks, with no salary cap or funding figure meaning they cannot plan budgets.
“That (delay) is because we have taken a tougher line on a full-distribution model,” V’landys said. “What became apparent during COVID-19 is distributing all your money out is not good when you have a crisis.
“I am confident this will resolve itself. With the clubs, I don’t know that we are that far apart.”
Crucial to any resolution will likely be greater grants for the women’s game. All 10 clubs with women’s teams have written to the NRL to say the proposed $1.2 million in funding for those clubs next year would still leave them $500,000 out of pocket by participating in the NRLW.
Newcastle Knights after winning the NRLW Grand Final. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
But V’landys said the gap could be bridged and that would keep most clubs onside.
“That (deficit) is not going to happen,” V’landys said. “The Commission is very passionate about the women’s game, and we want to invest in it. That is one area we want to do. I would like to see clubs kept whole on the women’s game. At the moment they are losing a bit, so if we fix that I think the majority of clubs are fine.
“Then you will have one or two clubs who want more money, which they won’t get. You have to put your foot down at some point.”
There is still far more to resolve with the Rugby League Players Association, with no key item agreed upon after months of talks.
V’landys made clear on Monday the NRL would be unwilling to cede to several requests, with players wanting greater agreement and consultation rights on matters such as integrity after the implementation of the no-fault stand-down policy, as well as governance reform on welfare and education.
“The players need to reduce their levels of demands, because you will get nowhere on those,” he said. “There are 26 pages of demands.
Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Vlandys. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
“We’re not going to agree to them because they are not commercial. Each one of them is to abrogate your power away from your organisation – which no-one does.”
The union also wants additional money from outside the likely $10.4 million cap to fund the past player and transitions program, which would include a medical hardship fund long after retirement.
“We’re not far apart on the money, it’s just how it’s distributed,” V’landys said. “We want to see the money go to the players now where they want to have retirement funds and injury funds.
“Someone like (Joseph) Suaalii won’t get that for 10 or 15 years. He would be more interested in having it now. So they’re the arguments we’re going to have. How the money is going to be distributed – should it all go in the salary cap and the cap would be massive?”
The 2023 draw, which is usually announced in October, still has not been released while the Commission’s ongoing legal battle with the NSWRL and acrimonious relationship with the state body is causing angst among the NSW-based NRL franchises.
There has been speculation suggesting the clubs are agitating for Abdo to be sacked due to the financial stalemate which has affected all 17 clubs, however V’landys is backing his CEO.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
The RLPA, with former Knights, Storm and Panthers forward Clint Newton at the helm, has been at loggerheads with the NRL over a number of issues relating to a lack of transparency and consultation between Rugby League Central and the players.
When the pandemic caused severe disruptions to the premiership in 2020 and 2021, the players took substantial pay cuts while also being blindsided by various rule changes introduced with little notice by the ARL Commission.
In 1994, ARL bosses Ken Arthurson and John Quayle returned early from a Kangaroo tour of the UK when the first threats of a breakaway league started coming from clubs.
That feud eventually led to the formation of the Super League involving 10 clubs not aligned to the governing body but it only lasted one season in 1997 before the warring parties struck a truce to form the NRL.
Dolphins CEO Terry Reader said he expected a resolution on the 2023 salary cap figure, likely to be between $10m and $11m plus concessions, to be imminent.
“There is a working committee that is working on that with the NRL in more detail. As a group, we get together and talk about what’s happening, where we are going and what’s going,” Reader said.
“Nothing has changed and we are looking forward to getting to the end of those negotiations, hopefully with a good result for the clubs, players and the NRL.”
Whatever the cap turns out to be, Reader said the Dolphins still had money in the kitty to spend.
“We’ve been working off a cap and we haven’t spent our whole cap which has been well publicised,” Reader said.
“There’s been no complaints from our club. We continue on and we are happy with the squad we have put together. There is still a lot of time before we run on the field in March.”
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