http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/...e/news-story/68b87b4e43ee41007c490e6f7558a3db
Rugby league agent Wayne Beavis to retire
NICK TABAKOFF, EDITOR AT LARGE, The Daily Telegraph
in 41 minutes
SOME of rugby league’s biggest names, including Jarryd Hayne, James Maloney, Trent Merrin and Dylan Walker, will be seeking new representation as Wayne Beavis, the game’s best-known and longest-serving agent, retires from the game.
Beavis was rugby league’s first fulltime player agent, blazing a trail during the 1980s with his first client being former NSW State of Origin star David “Cement” Gillespie.
When contacted yesterday about his imminent retirement, he replied firmly: “I’ve got no comment.”
But The Saturday Telegraph understands Beavis’s retirement will be ratified at a meeting of the NRL’s Player Agents Accreditation Committee in February.
Beavis’s retirement would also affect at least four leading coaches he represents, including the Cronulla Sharks’ Shane Flanagan, Manly’s Trent Barrett, the Roosters’ Trent Robinson and Penrith’s Anthony Griffin.
Beavis was one of the key figures in the professionalisation of the game, who ensured players were properly compensated.
As a fellow agent said yesterday: “When he came along, most players didn’t need agents.”
But Beavis changed this.
“He gets in there and fights for his players. He’s famous for caring for his players,” the agent said. “He’s highly-regarded and straight shooting.”
The move comes three months after Beavis was one of four agents raided by the NSW Fraud and Cybercrime Squad’s Strike Force Rhodium, in the wake of the Parramatta Eels salary cap scandal. The October raids ended with a trove of documents being seized from the homes and offices of Beavis and other agents.
Last year’s explosive NRL salary cap breach notice against Parramatta — prompted by an exclusive investigation by The Daily Telegraph — alleged Beavis’s client, Hayne, had been the beneficiary of secret third party payments by the Eels, which breached the NRL salary cap during his time with the club.
In December 2014, Parramatta Leagues Club transferred Hayne for $52,000 — $26,000 of that amount to Beavis and the other half to a company called JH Promotion.
There are no suggestions Hayne or Beavis were aware the payments were contrary to NRL rules.
Following the NRL’s initial Eels breach notice, Beavis has also been under scrutiny from an ongoing second investigation by the governing body conducted into the role of player agents in the Parramatta scandal.
