The NRL will consider publishing the total number and value of third-party arrangements each club attracts in a bid to flush out undisclosed player payments.
The Cronulla salary cap investigation has again cast the spotlight on TPAs, the common denominator in almost all of the game’s salary cap scandals. There won’t be any major changes after the NRL and the player’s union agreed to keep TPAs intact in the last round of collective bargaining talks, although a committee has been reviewing the system.
Titans CEO Graham Annesley, the NRL's incoming head of football, is a member of the working group looking into TPAs.
Photo: AAP
The committee comprises stakeholders including several club CEOs, including former Sharks boss Lyall Gorman. NRL CEO Todd Greenberg indicated Gorman, now at Manly, is one of the people the integrity unit will seek to interview alongside Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan and former chairman Damien Keogh.
One of the committee’s recommendations is to provide more transparency around TPAs. It is proposed that the NRL would divulge how many TPAs each club attracts and their total value. While individual player payments would remain confidential, the change will give fans and other stakeholders a chance to see the discrepancy between the 16 franchises. If accepted, the initiative will also provide an indication of the corporate pulling power of the game’s biggest names and how they are spread across the league.
The committee has also pushed for greater education to ensure players, managers and officials better understand the TPA rules and are made aware of the consequences of not following them.
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While the number and value of TPAs is falling across the game, the NRL and the Rugby League Players Association want the system to remain.
"TPAs per se are not the problem,” said Gold Coast chief and incoming NRL head of football Graham Annesley, a member of the TPA review committee.
“If they are declared upfront, approved by the NRL, and bring new money into the game to better reward our players and keep them in the game, that's a good thing.
“The problem arises with undeclared, unapproved TPAs that are used as a recruitment or retention tool outside salary cap guidelines. The working group has been looking at a range of initiatives around greater transparency and education in an attempt to limit the opportunity for future misuse of the system".
This season, 198 players will earn $9.6 million in TPAs, a figure that is decreasing. League powerbrokers claim the number of top-up payments, as well as the discrepancy between the “rich” and “poor” clubs, is overstated.
“In terms of the working group put together to look at the current TPA system, that highlighted to us that it’s a drop in the ocean when you look a the money going to players within the game,” said RLPA CEO Ian Prendergast.
“It’s important that everyone has transparency over what the TPA market looks like, given more than 80 per cent of these arrangements are linked to representative players who absolutely deserve those types of arrangements outside the salary cap.
“It also demonstrated it isn’t giving the clubs an unfair advantage. It’s more of a reflection of where they are in the cycle in respect to the age of the list they are running with. In terms of what can be approved in immediate future, it’s providing further clarity around the rules and how the operate.”
Another big change that has been mooted for next season is a central register of contract offers. That would require every club, when tabling an offer to a player, to submit the bid to the NRL.
In doing so, red flags would be raised if a player joined a club after knocking back significantly more money from a rival.
It’s hoped that the better regulation of player managers, via a new accreditation scheme that will be rolled out from November 1, will also help put an end to dodgy deals and further salary cap scandals.
All I can say is - its about f@#$ing time.
Replies
The roosters are not rorting the cap. They are simply taking advantage of a flawed system.
the eels should have no problems in attracting 3rd party sponsors, but we have idiots incharge who cant do what politis does for the chooks.
And you are confident that Rorters aren't rorting the cap? why? Cos Todd and Uncle Nick said so?
I would suggest that the Eels did what the Roosters are and have been doing, but the stooges in control didn't have the smarts to execute it as well as the Roosters and other clubs.
Fiddy, even if The Roosters are helping players source the TPAs they are rorting the cap . Are you saying you believe that in no way , shape or form The Roosters are involved with securing players TPAs ?
So James Maloney , SBW and JWH , all sourced their Footy Show contracts with ch9 all by themselves the year they won the comp with no help for Gyngel or The Roosters ? Just purely coincidental that 3 players from the same club happens to end up with a contract with the tv station their ex director , ambassador and life member runs ?
There’s a difference between “ player meet potential sponsor who approached us for an opportunity “ and “ player meet sponsor that we sourced for you on the provision you play for us “
The biggest problem is The NRL aren’t focusing on who the Sponsors are and how they’re coming about , also zero focus on whether they’re meeting any requirements for their sponsorship or whether it’s just a top up on their contract . The Inglis one with the charity is a prime example . He was supposedly an ambassador however wasn’t even listed on their website beside the other ambassadors. Blatantly hidden from the public and arranged by a Rabbits ex board member and life member .
How many of these potential sponsors just turn up at the door though with a bag of cash? If that were the case this should be fairly equal among clubs. There is no doubt clubs are scouting sponsors for TPAs.
Exactly , and that is how The Roosters , Storm , Sharks and The Broncos are getting away with it .
We woudve too if we didn’t have a whistle blower . The Roosters and Broncos are the best at it because they run a very tight ship they don’t have leaks . Anyone who leaks on Politis will never find a job in Sydney or The NRL ever again .
Politis came out earlier this year and said the roosters have hardly any TPA's so figure that one yet.
Haha it’s true ...but then again they don’t need to have any nrl approved registered TPAs and bother with that hooha do they...same as saints and others...cash is king!
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