Comment from the peanut gallery - the walnut, P.Kent
BULLDOGS chief executive Raelene Castle denied Andrew Fifita was being paid the reported figure of $850,000.
That is to be expected, and might even be right. The figure is coming from a party close to Fifita, who possibly has an interest in the figure getting out. Unlike the Bulldogs, who don’t.
But even if the $850,000-a-season is wrong, you can be sure Cronulla chairman Damian Keogh knows the figure down to the dollar. After all, it was Keogh’s job to come up with something close enough to keep him at Cronulla.
And he couldn’t.
Keogh is understandably still stinging. It would be hard not to be.
In The Australian on Thursday Keogh said: “We went as hard as we could but the kind of money you’re talking about, he is going to take up over 10 per cent of their salary cap ... well over 10 per cent”
When clubs take allowances into account, marquee players and long service and what-not, they can spend $6.2 million on player salaries.
Next year it will be $6.45 million.
Fifita will chew up 13 per cent of Canterbury’s cap. The other 24 players will share 87 per cent, even though that includes internationals Frank Pritchard, James Graham, Josh Morris, Sam Perrett, Sam Kasiano, Greg Eastwood, Krisnan Inu and Tony Williams.
Then there are Origin players Michael Ennis and Josh Reynolds. The young Moses Mbye, who signed this week for a reported $150,000 next year.
When you consider there are 13 players left who must be earning the NRL minimum wage of $80,000 next season, that leaves just $4.56 million to be shared among those 12 players named. Take out Fifita’s $850,000 a year, and Mbye’s $150,000, it averages to about $400,000 each, or less than half Fifita’s wage.
So Keogh’s concern is significant. But then he dropped this:
“It is going to put some pressure on them [Canterbury] in terms of who they can recruit and how they can pay players moving forward and that’s the rules the NRL allegedly has us playing under.”
Anyone else notice that?
Allegedly.
Keogh is saying what people are thinking.
How do they do it?
What is it that the Dogs have that makes players, other than Fifita, want to play at below market rate?
Many questioned the wisdom of buying a prop for a club that already has three international props, plus Aidan Tolman and the rising David Klemmer. Particularly at a club that is so light on for a strike fullback.
Yet on Wednesday Castle responded: “We are not going to sign a fullback just for the sake of it. But if a star fullback were to become available we would definitely be interested.”
So the Dogs have enough money left in their cap for not just any fullback, but a star fullback. That would suggest those 12 current representative players are on less than the $380,000 average suggest above. They have to be to make room.
It is a wonderful piece of administration.
For a time there I thought a disparity in third party allowances might be why there is a growing gap, ever increasing, between the top clubs and the rest in the NRL.
But the average total among the 16 NRL clubs being received in third party agreements is just $200,000.
The Bulldogs, along with Brisbane, Parramatta, North Queensland, Sydney Roosters and South Sydney get roughly double that from declared third parties.
Cronulla, St George Illawarra, Wests Tigers and Newcastle are below, while the remaining six clubs are near the average.
Allegedly
http://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/bul...-850000-a-season/story-e6frf3ou-1226855218848
