The AFL have proposed to the Players Association that they will shorten the season and in return they would like players to take a paycut of 20%.
SHOULD THE NRL PROPOSE THE SAME TO SAVE ITSELF?
From news article ....
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan revealed that he has already held discussions with AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh over the likelihood of player pay cuts.
"We obviously had those discussions with the AFLPA; to say there is going to be an amount of pain to be felt right across the industry – and everyone will have to tighten their belts," he said.
"It's clubs, it's the AFL and that includes the players.
"No one's made the final commitments but I couldn't have had a more productive set of conversations with Paul about understanding the gravity of the situation and the fact we have to work together to solve it."
Replies
NRL should ditch SOO and representative games this year
Give some buffer for playing postponed games
Freddie has already floated playing Origin over a 3 week period or just playing one game.
NRL could certainly be looking at a 15 week comp. Everyone plays everyone once.
I think it's definitely on the agenda.
but include the first two rounds as part of the draw. Cancel SOO and Rep games. This works
I can't imagine too many of the players would refuse to take a pay cut in these circumstances to support the game they're employed by. They do what they love for a living, they'll want to make sure the game survives long-term more than anyone.
Also, not sure of the validity of this so take it or leave it, but...
I just watched NRL 360 and apparently the senior Parra players have already agreed that if there's a pay cut, the senior players earning big coin have agreed to take the pay cut and help out the younger players as well if it comes to that. A nice gesture from the boys and glad to hear it if it's true.
I think you'll find the senior players at all clubs will have to do the same thing. Guys on the minimum can ill afford to lose half their salary this year, especially given that most of them would only have one or two year deals.
Yeah 100% Brett
There's going to be a lot of different levels to this, but I can see the players sticking by each other on this one... well I hope so anyway.
Agree with the sentiments Fuuui.
Moses /Gutho have already put their hands up to help fellow players & reduce the clubs' (game's) expenses.
Maybe the NRL season needs to be compacted somehow, cut shorter with finals starting much earlier: take the broadcast hit, avoiding the bigger iceberg. It's a race against time. It's only a matter of time before a player, coach or figure in the game gets infected & the pressure for closure will mount. How they do it is the question. Maybe rotating mid-week games where each club takes turns at shorter turnarounds using development players and other depth, rejigging cap rules for a while.
COVID-19's almost certainly going to get worse over the coming months, before it gets better and is mitigated. The infection numbers are certainly higher than Gov'ts would like to know or reveal (avoid even more panic and a deluged healthcare).There's millions worldwide infected I reckon, perhaps tens of millions or more spreading it unwittingly, asymptomatically. Probably plenty of the vulnerable already dying of secondary infections and respiratory failures due to SARS-Cov-2/ COVID-19 without being tested as well. No-one knows for sure how high the numbers are. By March next year it might be all under better control, vaccine in toe. I hope.
The game and clubs just need to stay afloat in the interim. V'landy's/Todd will no doubt be looking into every possibility & be able to re-negotiate broadcast deals along with other revenue sources with key stakeholders. Perhaps he'll get some of Morrison's $17b stimulus package, too. If anyone can, V'landy's can.
It's all about being creative, outside the box thinking, fast feet & timing now.