Parramatta Eels front-rower Junior Paulo continues a contract standoff with the Parramatta Eels after losing the Perth Bears deal.Contract talks collapsed between Paulo and the Bears in August after his management asked for a two-year deal at $900,000 per season.
This led the Western Australian-based club to pursue Corey Horsburgh from the Canberra Raiders after he had a falling out with Ricky Stuart.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a deal has been offered to extend with the Parramatta Eels.
Parramatta have offered Junior Paulo $650,000 per season, which still doesn't meet his expectations.
Paulo missed most of the season after having minor knee surgery.
There had been whispers that Super League clubs believed Paulo was available for the 2027 season, according to The Daily Telegraph.
"Junior is super important for us in terms of experience in the middle third of the field; we are quite young there," Jason Ryles said at the end of the season about closing Paulo on a new deal.
If Paulo stays at Parramatta, he will join his co-captain at international level, Jarome Luai, who is heading to the Eels in a 12-month stopgap deal for 2027.
Another Samoan star, Jaydn Su'A, will also arrive at the club on a three-year deal from the St George Illawarra Dragons.
It is likely that at this stage, Paulo will remain at Parramatta; however, money is a major factor for the 32-year-old in his next year.
Replies
Paulo was already gone and we were quite happy for him to do so. I was good with him at 600kish , I was even good with offering him a mutual second year . But he's truly shown his colours now as a greedy prick who couldn't give two fucks about the club. I actualy think we'd be a better side without his poor influence on young players.
How can you sell him as a club leader to young blokes? Do you what to breed more like him ? Nah .
Bit like when Hayne fucked off to NFL . We were a better side for his abcence .
Shown his colours, I thought some of his efforts this year were excellent, he played injured and was inspirational at different times.....Lazy I don't think you know the meaning of the word? he is a professional football playing a role as a front rower, having the shit belted out of him and you call him lazy.....Wiz is jealous of anyone that earns more than him and always finds a way to "disent".
Finally, no one knows the true values of these negotiations, Parra telegraphs nothing in these situations, what if his management started at 900k, would you not do your job the best way you can....what he ends up getting will again be not known, as the coaches on here don't have a clue, between Wiz and his minions they could not coach a choko vine up a wire fence.
Why insult a player like Paulo who is obviously passionate about his team, he never left us for money btw when he went to Canberra, a few seem to see that as an act of disloyalty, he was sold to put us back inside the cap after the regulators finished their job.
If Perth were going to pay him stupid money we agreed and thought it a fair reward, now we are left with these useless arguments and discussion.....you know its interesting you experts on here think our board know's nothing about football....I would go as far as saying they know a lot more than the "dills" on here.
Do you really think they sit on a board in a voluntary capacity to show everyone how clever they are, qualifications at about every level would leave the "haters" for dead.
PS I am sure that any of the board members would step aside if someone shows up better qualified. Saratinos has effectively done this at his self imposed end of tether. Realising now they need a CEO with qualifications other than financial management expertise.
Yeah I'd move on. 650000k year on year is more than fair for his age and he's had a couple of injuries.
650k is the same amount Trey Mooney is on. Would've been a handy signing but I heard we baulked on his asking price
The nerve of this guy, he ain't worth 400k and hasn't put in for a long time. Give him 1 year at 400k.
The nerve of the guy Krupty, how dare he ask for more than you think he is worth.....go for it my son .....I am pretty sure that his Mum is very proud of him.
Emotion plays a big part on what fans think a player is worth I mean you could go through Parra's roster and look at salaries and say is he worth that.Well Id suggest no one on our roster is worth what there getting paid because the performance of the team is sub standard but again that's emotion talking.
Reality is if we haven't got an experienced replacement for Paulo we have to reach some sought of middle ground.Hell if we ponied up the extra yr and a 100 k for Kolomatangi is Paulo even a discussion.See this is the position the club has put itself in we don't want to pay so we end up with what we end up with and the vicious cycle continues.When your a bad club especially in the recruitment stakes these are the situations and decisions we face.
Me the biggest hire we can make right now is a seasoned recruitment officer and turn recruitment over to him because what we have now sucks.
Doesn't seem like a stand off to me. He was going anyway but had the offer pulled by Perth.
Seems to me that we would hold the upper hand in any negotiations. If he doesn't like our offer he can move his family even further than Perth and freeze in Leeds (or some other place).
Yep, we actually have the best offer for him since nobody is going to pay him that much and he doesn't have to move.
His only options are Parramatta, Perth for their terms or SL.
Again, I believe the sticking point is he wants 2028 and we only want it as a CO, rightly so we should only want that.
It is because no one with his credentials we need wants to play here and hence why we swung hard for and missed with Barnett and Kolomatangi this is the penalty of it we miss with our top options and our fallback is Paulo.
Just like the coaching replacement for BA we can't get our preferred option and hence we have to settle for the fall back option.We need an experienced middle but no one wants Parra and we are back to the fallback option.This is the biggest problem at the club right now.If we could attract that sought of talent this is a none issue.Whatever Paulo is wanting we could have said sorry we can move on but we just can't do that because of the need for that experienced middle.
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