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
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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