Kingston rule: union wants 'unfairness' of salary cap to be addressed
Glenn Jackson | October 13, 2009
THE boss of the Rugby League Players Association plans to raise the plight of Kevin Kingston, who has been forced out of Parramatta, during discussions with NRL officials over the next Collective Bargaining Agreement due to what the union perceives as an ''unfairness'' in the salary cap.
The association's chief executive, David Garnsey, has described the rule whereby match payments are heaped into the following year's salary cap as ''perplexing'', although he did admit he had been unable to come up with a more workable model.
The rule has forced Eels hooker Kingston, who earned significant match payments in 2009 after playing 19 games, including the grand final against Melbourne, to move to Penrith. But he is only one of several players to be affected.
The premiers Melbourne were also hit, with Dane Nielsen and Ryan Tandy, players who would not have expected to play as many NRL games as they did this year, squeezing more air into an already full salary-cap balloon for next season.
Penrith re-signed their own player in Frank Puletua who had been similarly on an incentive-based deal, but only after he agreed to take a pay cut. ''Anything that forces guys to leave clubs, when they want to stay and the clubs truly want to keep them, is not a healthy situation,'' Garnsey said.
The rule effectively means a player who was given a base salary of, for instance, $50,000, who earns $3000 in match payments and plays eight matches, is immediately valued in the following season's salary cap at $74,000 - the base plus $24,000 in incentives - regardless of how many matches he plays the next year.
With the association to begin discussions with the NRL ''imminently'' about a new CBA, Garnsey plans to make an issue of it in future talks, although he does not believe a change can be written into the next agreement. Garnsey said he would think about fairer ways to treat match payments in coming months and would attempt to raise them with officials early next year.
''The first thing would be to raise it with the NRL,'' he said. ''We understand where they're coming from, but the clubs and the players are hurting with this one and we want to be able to accommodate everyone. We want to ensure that the sanctity of the salary cap is not dissolved but players stay at the clubs they want to play for. It's a real shame when clubs can't find room for grand final heroes.''
Meanwhile, Melbourne are expected to promote under-20s coach Brad Arthur into an NRL assistant coach role vacated by new Wigan coach Michael Maguire. Arthur took the Storm's outfit to a premiership to match the feats of the senior squad.
