Emotion aside, the issue of
(a) compensation, and
(B) player replacement
Is actually very technical and not as easy as like for like.
JDB is contracted to us until the end of 2020, therefore, under the stand down rule he has to he paid his salary until a decision on the court case is heard and judgement passed. Therefore, his salary has to be part of our cap.
Unfortunately, this maybe seen as a flaw in the rules set down in the stand down policy, however, there are many permutations this case can turn on, including;
(A) Police withdrawing the charge (maybe based on evidence etc), and
(B) the plaintiff withdrawing the charge.
This could happen at any time, remote as it may be. If this was to happen then JDB would be free to play immediately together with his included cap salary. If we had like for like compensation we would effectively have to release another player or players to fall back under the cap, otherwise it is "unfair advantage", for want of a better terminology.
The only other ways to get like for like is for us or the NRL, to tear up his contract. Given the oresumption of innocence and the player welfare concept, this would be very unlikely to happen. The other option is for JDB to walk away and quit the game himself (this is the same with the Inglis case). The final option is for him to actually do an Inglis, quit the game as a player, the club hire him in a capacity such as coaching staff or whatever until his options above are done. He could then be re-registered as a player (assuming innocence of charges of course) Its wether we have space in our cap at that time is the issue.
There is a lot of angst and assumption about our CEO and the suggested 100k compensation. We DONT KNOW if BJ has requested full compensation and lobbied hard for it. Unfortunately, its the decision by the NRL not by the club. Given the scenarios above the reasoning is there however unlikely they may seem.