Doyle offers new vision for salary cap
Date
April 24, 2013
Adrian Proszenko
Chief Rugby League Reporter
Jim Doyle has outlined his vision for the salary cap, promising to bring a more transparent system to ensure the world's best athletes are attracted to rather than squeezed out of the NRL.
Doyle was announced as the ARL Commission's new chief operating officer as part of an administrative shake-up. He will officially begin in the new role on May 20. While he will oversee a raft of responsibilities including integrity, education and human resources issues clubs will be most interested in his policing of the salary cap.
Incoming head of football Todd Greenberg has already spoken of his desire to recruit or retain the likes of Sonny Bill Williams and Israel Folau to further boost the NRL's star power. However, the clubs have been frustrated in their dealings with Ian Schubert and complained they have no right to appeal against his decisions.
"Any system in place can't be based on an individual's opinion": Doyle. Photo: Getty Images
Parramatta claim they lost any chance of snaring Folau because of the cumbersome registration process. Clubs are privately frustrated by the lack of transparency, and complain that he also does not provide any reasons for his rulings.
Doyle has promised that while the rules will be policed fairly, every effort will be made to ensure stars are attracted to the 13-man code. "Any system in place can't be based on an individual's opinion," he said. "We need to make sure, first and foremost, there is a huge amount of transparency in what is actually happening so there's good [processes] and systems in place.
"If there are hurdles, it's about trying to find the best possible solutions to overcome them rather than putting up a massive hurdle and say, 'Tough luck, that's it'.
"We want the NRL premiership to be the greatest competition in the world. We will have to look at everything to make that happen and we can't do that without the best athletes.
"We should always be looking at everything we can to attract the best athletes to the game.''
Doyle said he would create a system in which the clubs wanted to work with the ARLC in their quest for big-name recruits.
''That's one thing I'd like to look at: how we can try to change the concept of an audit being a negative thing and look it as a positive,'' he said. ''We want the NRL to assist the clubs rather than them thinking the NRL is spying on them.''
Rival football codes also have salary caps but have made exemptions to snare marquee players. The A-League bought Alessandro Del Piero, Emile Heskey and Shinji Ono to Australia, while the Australian Rugby Union provides central contracts to stars which are topped up by the provinces.
Doyle said he would consider those options and others, although his first priority would be to properly understand how the present NRL system works. ''It's a bit early for me to say everything we might do, but we'd do everything to ensure we have the right balance so we're not losing players because of some process,'' he said.
Williams' Roosters contract was only officially registered just days before the start of the season and there will be more intrigue when he comes off contract in October. The ARLC will need to decide whether possible boxing and union stints will come under the cap should he decide to remain in the NRL.
Doyle said that he would consider cap exemptions in special circumstances. ''If you want to expand into certain areas, then we may potentially need to make exceptions for a period of time,'' he said.''It's a logical thing to do if you're growing the game in an area, to have slightly different rules for a period and then come back in line with other clubs. Those types of things you would always consider."
