IN a huge victory for players, the NRL salary cap will be increased by $4.8 million across the 16 clubs next season, but it still won't allow Melbourne Storm to keep all their stars.
The Sunday Telegraph understands the Storm's current player roster is $850,000 over the cap this year - but a staggering $1.2 million for 2011.
In a major boost for players, each club will be allowed to spend an extra $300,000 next year as a result of the NRL's recently negotiated $45 million contract over 10 years with the NSW Government to keep the grand final in Sydney.
NRL management has decided to give the clubs an extra $3.2 million ($200,000 each) in grants from the $4.5 million a year that will be coming from the Labor Government coffers. On top of the grants, they will be allowed to spend an extra $100,000 on players.
NRL boss David Gallop will wait until after the upcoming chief executives meeting to confirm the biggest salary cap increase since the Super League war.
The game's hierarchy has been under huge pressure to increase player payments since the Storm salary cap rorting was exposed.
Gallop has personally met with more than a dozen of the game's biggest names in recent weeks to discuss salaries and ways to increase payments without putting struggling clubs in danger of collapse.
"We've always been willing to listen to the players and their concerns," Gallop said. "At our last CEOs' meeting, we agreed the clubs would put some ideas and proposals together to improve the salary cap.
"That's our next step and obviously the money we are getting from the government deal to keep grand finals in Sydney will be part of our next lot of discussions."
But the Storm are still likely to have to offload one of their big four players - Cameron Smith, Billy Slater, Greg Inglis or Cooper Cronk - following revelations that their salary cap cheating only gets worse next season.
The Sunday Telegraph understands salary cap auditor Ian Schubert and forensic accountants have discovered Storm officials were planning to spend $5.3 million next year. The club has already off-loaded Aiden Tolman ($250,000) to the Bulldogs and Brett Finch ($150,000) is expected to announce he is leaving within days.
That leaves Storm with $4.9 million on their books for 2011 and means they will have to lose another $500,000 worth of players to get back to the increased $4.4 million salary cap. Kiwi international Jeff Lima ($200,000) is also expected to leave.
A salary cap increase will put life back into a player market that has been slow because clubs have been waiting to see which Storm players will go onto the market and find out how much they will have to spend next year. It will also help St George Illawarra in their bid to sign centre Mark Gasnier for a minimal amount this year and back-end the deal into the next two seasons.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/nrl/m-player-pay-rise/story-e6frexnr-1225872938689
