Rumours and Stuff

[Poupou Escobar]

Interesting comment by Gus, never realised you could pre pay contracts.

Isn’t that what the Chooks did with Maloney? I remember merkins were up in arms about it.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

Isn’t that what the Chooks did with Maloney? I remember merkins were up in arms about it.

Yes but that was a new contract. He's talking about registered contracts. And I also thought they closed that loophole.

 

[Joshuatheeel]

Isn’t that what the Chooks did with Maloney? I remember merkins were up in arms about it.

Yeah something like that but they apparently did it in the year he was contracted by the warriors.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Isn't that what Gould is talking about?

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

If you really can do that then we should piss off every player we don't want next year immediately. Bring in some juniors for the rest of the year. Premiership here we come!

 

[Matty Bhoy]

Well we’ve missed out on Granville, if we were even keen.

I take it he has re-signed with NQ?

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

Hang on a second, are you allowed to have more than 30 players contracted?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

There's also six development contracts (full-timers) plus f**k knows how many juniors (part-time) in Flegg, Ball and Matts.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

I just can't see how it can be allowed. In theory you could have 30 players on the minimum for one year then have about $6 million extra to spend the following year. And I find it odd that pre-paying a player hasn't been mentioned once since the Maloney thing. If you can do it, clubs would have.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

I just can't see how it can be allowed. In theory you could have 30 players on the minimum for one year then have about $6 million extra to spend the following year. And I find it odd that pre-paying a player hasn't been mentioned once since the Maloney thing. If you can do it, clubs would have.

I'd say the majority of clubs don't have much room for pre-paying. Most if not all would have at least a third of their squad in any given year on back-ended contracts to pay for them being cheaper in previous years.

But if clubs cut someone during the season and don't spend all the money on a replacement I'm sure they front-load any extensions into the remaining cap space.

 

[eels_fan]

But you can only front load players at your club. Surely we can’t for instance be paying J Paulo money this year in as a way to offset some of his salary next year when he isn’t even contracted to us yet.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

I'd say the majority of clubs don't have much room for pre-paying. Most if not all would have at least a third of their squad in any given year on back-ended contracts to pay for them being cheaper in previous years.

But if clubs cut someone during the season and don't spend all the money on a replacement I'm sure they front-load any extensions into the remaining cap space.

But it would only take about three years for a club to do what I suggested. I think the reason clubs don't do it, and have contract situations as you say, is that it's not allowed. Every club but the top ones are aiming at premiership windows anyway.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

But you can only front load players at your club. Surely we can’t for instance be paying J Paulo money this year in as a way to offset some of his salary next year when he isn’t even contracted to us yet.

Well that's what the Roosters did with Maloney. But you have to have 30 players now, so what can you prepay them as? A development player?

 

[Poupou Escobar]

As for back-ending contracts, merkins (led by the media) carry on like it's a sign of complete amateurism, and the worst thing that can happen to a team's salary cap. But not only are new coaches (or any coach yet to win a premiership with their current club) under pressure to get immediate success, back-ending contracts is one of the few ways to gain an advantage under the salary cap, with the price paid in later years. Look at us for instance. After signing Paulo I reckon there's a good chance we don't have a lot of space in next year's cap. Given we need to sign another ten players (according to BA in a recent interview), suppose we only have enough to average $150k each. That'll get us five on $100k plus another five on $200k. But we still need a hooker and a winger for our top 17.

Blake Ferguson and Isaac Luke are playing good footy and off contract. What if we could get them for $450k and $600k, respectively? That's more than we can afford under this hypothetical cap scenario. We could either replace them in the 17 by re-signing Gennings and Pritchard, or we could back-end Ferguson/Luke into future years. Let's say Ferguson wanted $900k for two years and Luke wanted $1.2M over two. If we only paid them each $200k next year we would be on the hook for $700k (Ferguson) and $1M (Luke) in 2020. We only have five blokes contracted for 2020, so we have plenty of space. But $1.7M for two players is a big cap hit. If we gave them both an extra year we could spread the back-ending even further, giving Ferguson $450k per year for three years ($1.35M) and Luke $1.8M over three years. Minus the $200k we have available for them in 2019, that means Ferguson would get $1.15M over 2020-21 ($575k in years two and three) while Luke would get $200k + $800k + $800k over his three years.

But three years is a long time for two blokes who turn 29 and 32 next year. Ferguson would be 31 at the end of his contract and Luke would be 34. Risky, but what if both players said they already had two year offers (for the price they want) from more attractive clubs, and if Parra wanted them we would have to offer a three year deal? We could say thanks-but-no-thanks (or "f**k off") but that would mean going into 2019 with basically the same top 17 as this year, plus Junior Paulo. By back-ending a couple of guys out to 2021 (where we currently have heaps of cap space anyway) we could have a much stronger team in 2019, and let's face it, that's the only year most of us care about anyway, even more than the current year. 2021 is the distant future, and our current coach and CEO might not even have a job by then.

And this is how Manly and Canterbury can make the finals every year with a genuine shot at the premiership, and then end up with massive cap problems. It's not mismanagement while everyone's excited about them winning most of their games and playing in grand finals. Only after the fact do nuffies cry about how their salary cap position was ruined by amateurs.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

But you can only front load players at your club. Surely we can’t for instance be paying J Paulo money this year in as a way to offset some of his salary next year when he isn’t even contracted to us yet.

Says whom? I'm sure the time when contracts start and end (early November I think) is different to when the salary cap year starts and finishes. Which is why when Paulo arrives on the 1st of November we could pay him partly in the 2018 cap, in the freak chance we had any cap space left at the time.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

As for back-ending contracts, merkins (led by the media) carry on like it's a sign of complete amateurism, and the worst thing that can happen to a team's salary cap. But not only are new coaches (or any coach yet to win a premiership with their current club) under pressure to get immediate success, back-ending contracts is one of the few ways to gain an advantage under the salary cap, with the price paid in later years. Look at us for instance. After signing Paulo I reckon there's a good chance we don't have a lot of space in next year's cap. Given we need to sign another ten players (according to BA in a recent interview), suppose we only have enough to average $150k each. That'll get us five on $100k plus another five on $200k. But we still need a hooker and a winger for our top 17.

Blake Ferguson and Isaac Luke are playing good footy and off contract. What if we could get them for $450k and $600k, respectively? That's more than we can afford under this hypothetical cap scenario. We could either replace them in the 17 by re-signing Gennings and Pritchard, or we could back-end Ferguson/Luke into future years. Let's say Ferguson wanted $900k for two years and Luke wanted $1.2M over two. If we only paid them each $200k next year we would be on the hook for $700k (Ferguson) and $1M (Luke) in 2020. We only have five blokes contracted for 2020, so we have plenty of space. But $1.7M for two players is a big cap hit. If we gave them both an extra year we could spread the back-ending even further, giving Ferguson $450k per year for three years ($1.35M) and Luke $1.8M over three years. Minus the $200k we have available for them in 2019, that means Ferguson would get $1.15M over 2020-21 ($575k in years two and three) while Luke would get $200k + $800k + $800k over his three years.

But three years is a long time for two blokes who turn 29 and 32 next year. Ferguson would be 31 at the end of his contract and Luke would be 34. Risky, but what if both players said they already had two year offers (for the price they want) from more attractive clubs, and if Parra wanted them we would have to offer a three year deal? We could say thanks-but-no-thanks (or "f**k off") but that would mean going into 2019 with basically the same top 17 as this year, plus Junior Paulo. By back-ending a couple of guys out to 2021 (where we currently have heaps of cap space anyway) we could have a much stronger team in 2019, and let's face it, that's the only year most of us care about anyway, even more than the current year. 2021 is the distant future, and our current coach and CEO might not even have a job by then.

And this is how Manly and Canterbury can make the finals every year with a genuine shot at the premiership, and then end up with massive cap problems. It's not mismanagement while everyone's excited about them winning most of their games and playing in grand finals. Only after the fact do nuffies cry about how their salary cap position was ruined by amateurs.

People do carry on with a lot of nonsense about back-ended contracts but I don't think you can get away with anywhere near the variations from one year to the next in your examples.

 

[Poupou Escobar]

Why not? How else does Watmough end up on a reported $950k at Manly in 2015 dollars?

 

[TheRam]

maybe we just need a new logo

Rams.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

Why not? How else does Watmough end up on a reported $950k at Manly in 2015 dollars?

That was around a 60% increase on the previous year. You're talking about a 300% increase. I can't find you a quote because all the websites are shut at this time of night but I'm sure we've heard that massive differences between years are not on.

 

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

Hang on a second, are you allowed to have more than 30 players contracted?

Why would they have more than 30 contracted players. His tweet explicitly states that this 'prepayment' relies on moving other players on before June 30. So, if Player X is currently on 500k for 2018, 800k for 2019 and 1m for 2020, and the Dogs move on a player who has $250k left on their 2018 contract, they could potentially up Player X's 2018 salary to $750k, and reduce 2020 salary by $250k. I believe that they'd need to extend Player X's contract though (unless they've changed that rule). They are not 'prepaying' 2019 salary. They are replacing Player X's contract with one of similar value over the 3 years, but with different distribution of payments.