GOAL-kicking and wrestling coaches, nutritionists, statisticians and sports psychologists will fall under a new cap on football department spending, set to be ratified before the finals.
And for the first time The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the cap will sit between $6m and $7m.
A meeting next week between the NRL and a four-man working panel is set to formalise recommendations which will allow chief executive Todd Greenberg to take the new footy cap guidelines and rules to a meeting of club bosses next month.
The football department cap is considered the greatest equalisation measure for the competition since a salary cap for player payments was introduced in 1990.
The cap is designed to save financially stricken clubs from going broke or in the extreme, being forced by the NRL to relocate to Perth or become a second team in Brisbane.
Todd Greenberg will propose new football department guidelines
The cap will focus purely on the amount of club spending outside of the player salary cap.
The NRL has previously declared the new football department cap isn’t about stymieing innovation.
However, the concern from the NRL is the gap is widening between the wealthiest clubs and those struggling financially. Some have the capacity to appoint at-times double the amount of experts in high-performance, specialist coaching and assistants to poorer clubs.
The new cap will include the salaries of every football staff member. Capital expenditure and centres of excellence won’t be included.
Over the past five years, spending on the football department and staffing — as clubs seek to gain an advantage — has exploded, blowing club budgets by a combined figure of almost $29 million.
Clubs that fail to work within the parameters of the new cap figure, which is expected to sit around $6m and $7m, will be required to pay a “luxury tax” where money will be pooled by the NRL and most likely drip-fed across clubs that don’t overspend.
The working panel which will meet the NRL next week includes club CEOs Justin Pascoe (Wests Tigers), Joe Kelly (Sydney Roosters), Greg Tonner (North Queensland) and David Donaghy (Melbourne).
And for the first time The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the cap will sit between $6m and $7m.
A meeting next week between the NRL and a four-man working panel is set to formalise recommendations which will allow chief executive Todd Greenberg to take the new footy cap guidelines and rules to a meeting of club bosses next month.
The football department cap is considered the greatest equalisation measure for the competition since a salary cap for player payments was introduced in 1990.
The cap is designed to save financially stricken clubs from going broke or in the extreme, being forced by the NRL to relocate to Perth or become a second team in Brisbane.
Todd Greenberg will propose new football department guidelines
The cap will focus purely on the amount of club spending outside of the player salary cap.
The NRL has previously declared the new football department cap isn’t about stymieing innovation.
However, the concern from the NRL is the gap is widening between the wealthiest clubs and those struggling financially. Some have the capacity to appoint at-times double the amount of experts in high-performance, specialist coaching and assistants to poorer clubs.
The new cap will include the salaries of every football staff member. Capital expenditure and centres of excellence won’t be included.
Over the past five years, spending on the football department and staffing — as clubs seek to gain an advantage — has exploded, blowing club budgets by a combined figure of almost $29 million.
Clubs that fail to work within the parameters of the new cap figure, which is expected to sit around $6m and $7m, will be required to pay a “luxury tax” where money will be pooled by the NRL and most likely drip-fed across clubs that don’t overspend.
The working panel which will meet the NRL next week includes club CEOs Justin Pascoe (Wests Tigers), Joe Kelly (Sydney Roosters), Greg Tonner (North Queensland) and David Donaghy (Melbourne).
