PARRAMATTA are set to have the NRL’s full $7.1 million salary cap at their disposal for next season, allowing them to potentially make the blockbuster signings of Jarryd Hayne, Corey Norman and even one more marquee player by year’s end.
This ray of sunshine for Eels fans — following the club’s train wreck of this season — follows The Daily Telegraph’s revelations that battling star Kieran Foran was looking for a $200,000 termination payout to finalise his departure from the club.
While Foran’s final termination number is likely to be closer to $150,000 — representing payment to the end of the season — it is believed the Eels’ interim CEO Bevan Paul has all but finalised Foran’s golden goodbye from the club.
The club is also set to meet with the NRL as early as today to hammer out its final salary cap position for this year and next year in the wake of Foran’s departure.
Paul and former NRL salary cap auditor Ian Schubert are likely to spearhead Parramatta’s salary cap negotiations with the NRL. Schubert is believed to be returning from holidays to resume his role with the club today.
Following alleged salary cap rorts that resulted in the entire Eels board being sacked at the instigation of Deputy Premier Troy Grant, the club was initially estimated to be carrying nearly $700,000 in dodgy third-party payments into next season alone.
There had been suggestions these payments would have had to be taken into account in next year’s salary cap.
However, with Foran’s imminent departure alone, the club is already set to save $1 million-plus from its 2017 salary cap from his contract and previously scheduled under-the-table third-party payments, subject to the approval of the NRL’s salary cap auditor Jamie L’Oste-Brown.
The Eels will have salary cap room to potentially make the signings of Jarryd Hayne, Corey Norman and even one more marquee player.
There could be further salary cap benefits from Foran’s departure if the club can work with L’Oste-Brown to hammer out a way to exclude Foran’s termination benefit from its 2016 salary cap.
This could allow the Eels to bring forward some of their payments to players for 2017.
And that is just the start of the savings for Parramatta. With the negotiated retirement of Anthony Watmough the club will save a further combined $1.3 million in salary and TPAs from its 2017 cap — bringing total savings for 2017 alone to well over $2 million.
And this is not to mention the savings it has already made on Watmough, hooker Nathan Peats’ departure to the Gold Coast and now-Canberra prop Junior Paulo’s $250,000 salary for the current season.
These savings are likely to cancel out dodgy third-party payments that had been promised by the club up to 2019, which would have added up to more than $1.3m between 2017 and 2019 had they been delivered. Foran was scheduled to receive $450,000 in under-the-table TPAs during this period, and Watmough $400,000.
There is no suggestion any of the players mentioned have done anything wrong.
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