The way I see things is that he signed a reduced contract with the Sharks and the NRL sat on their hands and did nothing. So whether for whatever childish reason you may not like him as a "player" the NRL has lost a great talent to Yawnion.
End of story.
Don't know that you can say that they sat on their hands...
They're trying to run a billion dollar business and every time one of these players does something negative to drag the game into the media it impacts the clubs, sponsors, fans and game in general in a negative way.
The NRL obviously have rules and regulations in place around drug offenses and in this case it meant an automatic 12 game ban. Now remember that Barba already had a contract in place and it was decided between he and the Sharks to tear this up. Then they tried to register a new contract only a few weeks later.
When they did this, they were the ones to open the can of worms. The Sharks and Barba are the ones who took this from being a simple 12 game ban to new contracts and uncharted territory. Of course the NRL would have had to screen the contract with a fine tooth comb to make sure the Sharks and Barba hadn't invented some new loophole that would get the other clubs off side or that another drug banned player could exploit. Remember, they're running a billion dollar business here and so they can't just enter into an agreement with a player and club because Ben's having a bit of trouble paying the mortgage.
Ben is the one that kicked over the ants nest in the first place so he should have shown some humility and let the NRL run through their processes in trying to accommodate him back in the game. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes about the type of person he is.
