Eels Blogs

Replies

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  Slippery. August 24, 2013 at 8:30pm

   If the club tells the player (mid contract) to look for another club, and both the currant club and player agree on the deal with the new club (if the new deal is less) the club must pay the difference.

   For example.... Daniel Mortimer had more than 1 year left on his $250,000 at Parra. He was told to look elsewhere. Both Daniel and the Eels agreed on the Roosters deal at $100,000 per year. The Eels then paid the difference of $150,000 per year.
• ParramattaFB August 24, 2013 at 8:38pm

  I prefer curves
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  Prof. Daz August 24, 2013 at 8:57pm

  Bernie, I think Slippery is right. But I think you're asking a different question. That is, WHY does or SHOULD a club pay the difference if a player voids a contract? Obviously there has to be cause to void the contract that is somehow in the contract. But setting that aside, individual contracts sit within a larger system of contacts. In this case, player contracts sit within the collective bargaining agreement. And part of the consideration for setting that broader collective bargaining agreement was probably some idea about the relative power differential between employer and employee. In most cases, employers have more power than employees, so contractual system often include protections for the lesser powered employees.
  
  I think it is quite easy to assume a high profile player has power over the club, but in life money talks and I suspect clubs on average wield more power than players, hence protections against getting moved on and so forth. Cases like Barba strike me as the times where someone maybe not disadvantaged nevertheless benefits from protections there to protect the disadvantaged.
  
  So it's possible what one thinks of the "pay the difference" idea is a function of what one thinks of the social justice idea of protecting the less powerful, and I guess it's also going to be a function of whether one is OK with a few getting advantages they might not actually need so that many who do need them can get them unproblematically?
  
  PS: I am not a lawyer, but a political theorist, but this is my best guess answer to your implied question.
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    Earl Grey > Prof. Daz August 24, 2013 at 9:02pm

    Bit off topic, but what is a political theorist?
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  Patsy Stone August 24, 2013 at 8:59pm

  Bernie it would not be very often that a player would agree to void a contract in favour of a contract of a lesser amount.
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    Bernie Dowling > Patsy Stone August 24, 2013 at 9:22pm

    Hi Patsy, Agree not very often but it happens.See my example about Wallace who begged for a top-up in the Courier-Mail. If you are trying to save your career, you will take less money. Sandow is the current case in point. 
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  Bernie Dowling August 24, 2013 at 9:03pm

  The point is Miatch the Eels agreed to it, so it became a clause of the new contract. I might be wrong but wouldn't that $150, 000 been part of the Eels salary cap?  Nothing surprises me about the dumb things the Eels have done. (Carl Webb, anyone?). But the Broncos are too smart for that. Wallace could have played for $350,000 in the Qld Cup next year which would have  finished his career. It is a bit of a poker bluff and we are hopeless at that sort of thing.
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  Yobz August 24, 2013 at 9:11pm

  Exactly. It is the club that wants to terminate the contract and is in essence "paying out" the remainder.
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  Bernie Dowling August 24, 2013 at 9:27pm

  I know what you are saying,  Wiz. I am just saying people should know it is a choice and negotiation thing. It is not automatic, which I think some people think it is.
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  Bernie Dowling August 24, 2013 at 10:07pm

  Well, put Maitch. But there are alternatives. In Mortimer's case, Parra could have said are we that desperate to get rid of Mortimer that we will have $150,000 against our salary cap for someone playing for another club. We could have also called the Roosters bluff and they might have gone to $180,000 for Mortimer.If you buy the right players at the right price, you will win a premiership. Unfortunately, struggling clubs like ours make wrong deals out of desperation.