Bombshell David Fifita signing is the final straw for cooked NRL.
David Fifita’s league-shaking signing with the Sydney Roosters is officially the final straw for the NRL as a hated trend continues.
It won’t be lawyers or doctors or a wet lettuce slap across Tom Trbojevic’s chops that eventually kills rugby league.Why ?Because you can’t kill something that’s already dead.
Book the priest and dig a grave deep enough for 116 years of wasted history, because rugby league has officially drawn its last breath.
With David Fifita accepting a $200,000 annual pay cut to join the cashed-up Roosters, the game has been crushed to death under the weight of select elites and their imperious net worth.Fifita’s decision to abandon the poorly Titans has confirmed rugby league is now nothing more than a capitalist playground for a handful of Gordon Geckos.
Profiting on a skewed economy, bottomless third party clout and shifty player agents, elite clubs have bastardised the player market beyond repair with their financial doping.Everywhere you look, the rich are stockpiling Origin players purely in case of a rainy day by pecking the destitute to death like blinged-up bin chickens.
"David Fifita has given up on the Titans and the big money on offer at the club. And it’s sadly left the NRL fatally riddled with impoverished clubs that will never attract another quality player again.
Unless these pleb sides are willing to concede a raft of dangerous contract clauses and 130% of their annual turnover, they are destined to live forever off hand-me-downs and various dalliances with Kyle Flanagan.
Fifita’s decision to abandon money in favour of an enormous queue of gun backrowers proves the NRL’s days of a functional salary cap are finished, and Gorden Tallis agrees.
"This is what I don’t get, you have got these struggling clubs down below who are trying to compete in this premiership,” the Queenslander mourned.
"He is on a three-year deal for $3 million and he goes to a club for less. That’s the part I don’t get.
"Sure, there’s nothing novel about the Roosters swooping at the midnight hour for something shiny.
"But this was more than an impulse purchase, it was the canary in the mineshaft."
Trent Robinson has landed another huge signing. Sydney Roosters chairman Nick Politis was again heavily involved in getting the deal done. Pic: Supplied
Players like Fifita and Jack Wighton won’t be the last guys taking unders to “chase the dream”, meaning the NRL is heading towards becoming a competition of soulless super-teams feasting on plankton.
Like the English Premier League, the NBA and federal politics, only a select few will ever compete for the title, with the remaining participants serving purely as numbers to sustain the TV deal.
Imagine one team hoovering all the talent every year and predictably crushing its opposition?
It’s woeful enough with Manchester City and the Maroons, and it will satiate nobody in the NRL except bookies and corporates.
Rugby league is meant to be the egalitarian game, a commercial utopia where paupers rub shoulders with princes and every dollar is equal unless it’s the NZD.
But the lure of “culture” has become the most volatile market manipulator since “compassionate grounds”.
Jack Wighton moved to the Rabbitohs from the Raiders for less money. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images).
Sure, powerhouse clubs can offer so much more than more money, and who among us wouldn’t waive a few hundred grand for the privilege of post-career financial advice and Justin Holbrook.
And who wouldn’t be tempted to accept less to fulfil their “dream”, especially if their “dream” was a round of golf with a club’s tactically-distanced business contact that finishes on the 19th hole with a club sandwich and the keys to a new condo.
But what post-career guarantees can competing clubs offer?
Barbecues and CTE, and that’s it.
No wonder desperate clubs are throwing the farm at anything with a pulse and conceding generous clauses that allow the legal power to bend the Titans over a barrel.
Make no mistake, the race for Fifita’s signature is exactly how all big-fish negotiations will now be conducted:Tokenly.
Tino Fa'asuamaleaui (L) may be the next to go after David Fifita’s exit.
Sure, Penrith thought they had a puncher’s chance - but only before they realised the Roosters had entered the fray - while the Dragons were at the table the whole time like the microphone at a Milli Vanilli concert.
It means the strong are only getting stronger, and to be honest, the only reason Dane Gagai didn’t also sign with the Roosters was because there was no more room that night on Nick Politis’ catamaran.
So everyone enjoy the last cadaveric spasms of “The Greatest Game of All” because it’s been choked by the wealthy’s need for three rep back rowers in their NSW Cup team.
Your treasured game built on tradies and raffles is now run by aristocratic corporates laughing from their ivory towers, and they’re distracting us with strips of surplus wagyu while tapping-up your best junior talent.
About the author:
Dane Eldridge is a warped cynic yearning for the glory days of rugby league, a time when the sponges were magic and the Mondays were mad. He’s never strapped on a boot in his life, and as such, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Replies
I'm happy to be corrected but I thought TPA's were brought in as a way of topping up players salaries when the salary cap was relatively new and not very large.
The salary cap is well over 10 million now plus other dispensations.
It seems only the elite players are getting the TPA's anyway so why do we still need them when these players are already on very good money.
I wonder, we will never truely know, but I wonder if the excitement of winning a comp for a fan from a club like Penrith is the same as it for teams that just (suspiciously) buy comps. I mean look at the Bulldogs, that isn't the Bulldogs, they don't represent the Canterbury Bankstown area, that's just a purchased team, not any different to the roosters over the years. It becomes almost (but not quite) like a hollow win.
If we won it between 1996-1998 (we were certainly a chance) with the four Bulldogs players I would have been happy but I just don't think I'd have been as excited as if we won it in 2001 with the more home grown side we had.
Certainly something to ponder.
On another note I still think there is a difference between brisbane/Melbourne and the roosters. Obviously they all have an advantage, but at least brisbane and Melbourne make their players good, sure they then suspiciously find a way to keep them, but the roosters just straight up buy comps. I think there is a difference.
Yeah interesting thought. I reckon you're right - it would have felt like a bit of a bought comp if we won it in the earlier Smith years. It kind of felt like an assembled team at that stage.
Don't let Penrith off the hook. They showed how they operate when Maloney accidentally blabbed about his Keno TPA.
Bring in a salary cap based on a points system.
It's the only way to stop talent hoarding and ensure the talent is spread throughout the competition. Anyone opposing this isn't interested in a fair competition.
Another salary cap sombrero signing Fifita waiting paitetly for his brown paper bag at roosters golf day!
that the NRL knows about and does nothing as usual!
total cheating 101
Newcastle now being investigated for non arms length deal involving Ponga. It fascinates mean that the Roosters are never investigated and yet there is clearly an issue. It tells you that there is an issue with the rules so that it favors certain clubs.
It's only hard when the board own up to it on their own board meeting records.
*Let's face it, if the dopes who run the Parra board were as smart as the Roosters board members, they would get away with it to.
(*I by no means endorse the Roosters cap cheating. This wasn't a paid for comment.)
Its being reported as:
1. Registered Third Party Deal from 2022-23-24 hasnt been paid to Ponga.
2. The deal has been registered and approved by the NRL in 2022
3. Payments totalling in the 100's of thousands havnt been paid by the third party.
4. Its being mainstream reported that the Newcastle Knights will have to put the arrears payments onto their salary cap and pay Ponga the outstanding amounts.
My Question: How the hell if its at arms length and the Knights have nothing to do with the deal, does the money owing to Ponga have to be paid by the Knights and go on their respective salary caps.
The NRL is Bizare with this salary cap shit. Makes you wonder what players are really earning. Ponga has $1.4million a year on the salary cap now. So what is he actually getting. The mind boggles when you think of all the other Marque players at various clubs and what they are earning and how we as the Eels cannot compete in attempting to sign them at the negotiating table.
We can never amass a team capable of a premiership with one hand tied behind our backs at the negotiating tables.
Roosters basically fielding an international representative team while other clubs have Morgan Harper is an issue lol.
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