For mine. The only thing that matters in this case is what was agreed between the party's. If Carney signed the deal that has a clause in it that he has clearly breached then it matters not one fugging jot what anyone else has done will do or is contemplating wether it be the sharks or any other team in the league. He agreed to it and has to honour that commitment. I don't see Toddy boy complaining that the terms of the contract aren't being upheld. Its a matter of degree I guess. And to me that's a bit grayer. But ive boiled it down to this. Its a bit like cheating on the missus (if your into that). Some say surfing porn is cheating, other say a flirt is, some say you have to go balls deep. What matters is what you've agreed between you and the missus (ie what would you be happy telling the missus). So I ask myself, would Toddy have been happy to waltz into Shark Park and provide a power point preso with his photo as the only slide? His reaction says no to me. I reckon he knows he overstepped the boundary of his agreement and I couldn't care less about anyone elses). And I am so far away from being religious its not funny.
This may be the case, he may have had an agreement that he broke.
In which case I'd say two things.
First, the club should be more open with us about that (so we can rightly condemn them for putting a stupid idea like "disrepute" into a contract) and have a clear process (clear to Carney and to fans) for judging if such a clause has been breached.
Second, putting a stupid, unfair and possibly discriminatory way of judging someone into a contract may or may not make it legal (I'm no legal expert) but it doesn't make it any less stupid, unfair, or even possibly discriminatory.
If someone has a past history of religiously motivated violence, and we wanted to hire them, we could rightly say that violence is the issue, and any more criminal activity is cause for termination of the contract. I'd hope the NRL had a fair and transparent system already for dealing with law breaking (especially violence) from all players, but they don't, they also rely on the ridiculous and easily abused notion of "bringing the game/club into disrepute". Since they don't have a decent system, I'd have no problem with a contract that says if the player continues to be violent, for whatever reason, that we terminate the contract.
But I'd have a real issue with any clause that says this player can't continue their "unsavoury" religious practices, or that they can't be an outspoken proponent of their religious values, even though I'd likely find such values objectionable.
It would be just as bad to have a clause like that in a contract as it would be to not have any clauses and just rely on "moral outrage" as a barometer of how likely we should be to terminate a contract.
