The only thing 'arse about' here is the idea that the clubs are owed anything.
In this case they are owed something, they are business's that are having their resources used by another business without compensation.
If it was your business you'd be pretty pissed too, unless it was a state of emergency or something.
The NRL takes a lot from NZ in particular and gives very, very little back. The NZRL should receive proportionate funding to the players they contribute, but they don't get close to what the NSWRL and QRL do.
Firstly the NZRL don't own the players from NZ, just as the NRL doesn't own players from Australia, they have no 'right' or whatever to them just cause they are Kiwis, the NRL clubs do however have a 'right' to their services cause they have a contractual agreement with the players in question that says these player will play for this period of time and under these circumstances for them. The NZRL (and the RFL, and Moore) is affecting the players ability to fulfill that contract with immunity from the responsibilities of that contract to each party, and that is wrong, it is morally wrong.
If this was the government or governing body of an industry that was consistently commandeering the employees and/or equipment of a private business (say a small construction company just for example) without compensating the business and it's owners you'd be outraged, absolutely outraged, the whole country would crack it with shouts of corruption and abuse of power, and they'd be right to, this is no different, but for some reason their is a mental block that says professional sport isn't a 'real business' and it's not the same cause they're going to represent their country in everyones' brains, when it's exactly the same.
BTW, the NZRL it's self shouldn't see a cent from the NRL unless they come under the NRLs' jurisdiction, they do however receive grants from the NRL, and it's the NRL's decision to do that, but they shouldn't, but this's a whole other discussion.
The NRL, through financial weight, has taken a good chunk of England's top players, and now wants to stop them representing England?
Again the RFL doesn't own English players, and there's nothing to suggest that the NRL clubs want to stop them from representing England, if the did want to stop them representing England then they wouldn't have let them represent England at the world cup, they just don't want them representing England at their expense, and that's a completely reasonable request.
I'm all for the NRL to provide salary cap relief to its own clubs if it wishes, I couldn't give a shit either way tbh, that's an in-competition concern not an international concern.
Of course you couldn't you're a Roosters fan, you don't have a cap...
Seriously though, cap exemptions would be a good start, but it needs to go beyond that, and it shouldn't only be for the NRL clubs, it should be universal, the RFL should be doing it, the NZRL should be doing it, where applicable everyone should be doing it, and not just for the top tier either, if a championship club, QLD cup club, or even a lowly Group 8 club, whoever is being effected by this then there should be some sort of compensation worked out.
But to suggest that cash strapped international teams compensate $30mil a year turnover NRL clubs for players to play representative football is just about the most arse-about thing i've ever read on this website.
Unfortunately the NRL clubs aren't charities, if people want their services they have to pay for them, and their's no reason why the small nations themselves would have to pay that compensation.
Besides their are forms of compensation other then just monetary.
Top players come from England and NZ to the NRL for the cash, weakening the competitions in England and making it impossible for NZ to even have a professional competition. And that's fine, to an extent. The question comes down to what responsibility the NRL has to the wider game.
Obviously you @The Great Dane think it is zero. Most of us disagree. "With great power comes great responsibility" and all that. The NRL's financial weight means it gets the top talent, yes. But the other side of that coin should be a responsiblity to the game, to the countries it takes players from, to support the lesser powers and the places the game is just starting.
I don't believe that at all, don't put words in my mouth.
Obviously the NRL has to put back into the grassroots of the game and all that (which they do so outside of their region more so than any other RL in the world, if they didn't effectively prop up RL in NZ and the PIs RL wouldn't be half as big as it is on the international stage), they should also support international RL, whether or not they put as much back in as they should is another question for another time, however they should not be expected to do that at the expense and/or to the detriment of their own region and constituencies.
The NRL and NRL clubs first concern is to themselves, cause you can't help anybody if you can't help yourself...
If money was all that mattered, everything would just gravitate towards the NRL until there is basically nothing else. That's not somewhere the game should strive to be.
That's not necessarily true, and it's not the way that things are going either, however if the NRL out competes the rest of the market it out competes the rest of the market, we shouldn't be trying to plan the RL economy so to speak cause it never works anyway.
