84 Baby
Referee
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I swear I did another thread on this but f**ked if I can find it.
*Big caveat to start off - changing cap rules/admin requires in large part getting players and clubs to agree, it's not all on the NRL. If it means giving up more of the revenue share, so be it IMO.
So almost half the comp have been found to have significantly rorted the cap rules. Things be broke.
If rules are being broken consistently, it is either an inherent rebellious streak in the club officials (to a degree there'd be an underpinning of desire to win), the administration of the rules is lacking (IMO partly because the NRL don't want to find problems), the rules themselves aren't effective, or a combo of all three.
I think if you get a whole bunch of ex-players or passionate club supporters together who are really driven to win then the possibility of pushing/breaking the rules increases, but no one else is going to run these clubs. So you need to reduce the opportunity to cheat (or increase the deterrent/penalty for doing so).
The surface administration of the rules is nowhere near robust enough. Essentially relying on whistleblowers, self-reporting, the integrity of officials and apparent limp penalties isn't doing the job. I'd hope the NRL would be more intense on their scrutiny of club financials and player income to know the exact cap position of every club at any given time. There's certainly other ways around it but these rorts aren't being found until years after the event, so they definitely need to shorten that timeframe up.
The penalties themselves clearly aren't enough of a deterrent either. Options are to harden penalties to the point of effectively disintegrating clubs, or (we come to the main crux of the thread) essentially a loosening of the rules.
So my new cap proposal is a 2 tiered soft/hard cap system (FYI I did steal a lot from NBA):
Another alternative is to dissolve the cap, pay players whatever you can afford and in the blink of an eye Brisbane will have the QLD origin side, Roosters the NSW origin side, Warriors the NZ test side and the Scum will have every other rep player who wants to live outside Brisbane/Sydney bubble
*Big caveat to start off - changing cap rules/admin requires in large part getting players and clubs to agree, it's not all on the NRL. If it means giving up more of the revenue share, so be it IMO.
So almost half the comp have been found to have significantly rorted the cap rules. Things be broke.
If rules are being broken consistently, it is either an inherent rebellious streak in the club officials (to a degree there'd be an underpinning of desire to win), the administration of the rules is lacking (IMO partly because the NRL don't want to find problems), the rules themselves aren't effective, or a combo of all three.
I think if you get a whole bunch of ex-players or passionate club supporters together who are really driven to win then the possibility of pushing/breaking the rules increases, but no one else is going to run these clubs. So you need to reduce the opportunity to cheat (or increase the deterrent/penalty for doing so).
The surface administration of the rules is nowhere near robust enough. Essentially relying on whistleblowers, self-reporting, the integrity of officials and apparent limp penalties isn't doing the job. I'd hope the NRL would be more intense on their scrutiny of club financials and player income to know the exact cap position of every club at any given time. There's certainly other ways around it but these rorts aren't being found until years after the event, so they definitely need to shorten that timeframe up.
The penalties themselves clearly aren't enough of a deterrent either. Options are to harden penalties to the point of effectively disintegrating clubs, or (we come to the main crux of the thread) essentially a loosening of the rules.
So my new cap proposal is a 2 tiered soft/hard cap system (FYI I did steal a lot from NBA):
- The first threshold would probably be akin to the current model. 30 players, $10m (rounded), all the same payments included/excluded, if you're below cap then you have no restrictions on paying/signing players (beyond contract law). The NRL grant matches this cap, although I expect the grant could be more than the cap amount.
- The second hard threshold would say be $2m above 1st cap. Once you go above the soft cap, you are restricted to only being able to re-sign your own current free agents or players to minimum contracts. If you go above hard cap, your ass is grass. There'd have to be some mechanism that means clubs don't utilise the NRL grant to pay players into this cap. The main use I see it for is club prepared TPAs, this encourages clubs to not go nefarious on their TPAs but declare everything instead.
- Players aren't restricted on earning legit TPAs.
- Possible working of "minimum" contracts in relation to hard cap restrictions so X year vets aren't restricted to the same remuneration as untested rookies.
- Possible cap provisions for cap exempt, long-term juniors in their first year of their full contract (subject to salary restrictions)
- Possible cap penalties for going over soft cap - perhaps the final cap can even be a rolling amount for clubs, so there's penalty for paying over soft cap that accumulates and restricts final cap in subsequent years, and likewise paying below soft cap provides allowances to final cap figure in year they exceed soft cap. Or even more simple, teams that go over soft cap are locked into that year's hard cap and it doesn't reset until they play a complete season under the soft cap?
- I had a couple of other ideas but forgot them for now
Another alternative is to dissolve the cap, pay players whatever you can afford and in the blink of an eye Brisbane will have the QLD origin side, Roosters the NSW origin side, Warriors the NZ test side and the Scum will have every other rep player who wants to live outside Brisbane/Sydney bubble