Legend I can see what your saying, but the bigger threat than rugby taking what 6 players of significance across a 5 year period is the money that the AFL is pouring into grassroots. The afl have got their model right.
The number of afl development officers on the ground seems to be about double that of the rugby league counterparts in nsw and qld.
Look it would be great for players to get a bit more money but not at the expense of the grassroots which must come first.
I know the nrl is trying to get to a point where they are able to give club's grants which equate to equal the salary cap. If that was done at $5million, thats $80 million dollars.
Thats leaves only about $46 million for every other aspect of the game, I know at the moment the NRL/ARL spend about $62 million on all the expenses with running and developing the game. Plus News Ltd get another $8 million out every year.
The new deal with telstra may give a bit more income, but I seriously doubt the nrl could afford anything more than $4 million to each club. They currently give each club $3.25 million.
We really don't want the rugby union model, which is spend everything at the top. Sure they might be spending $1 million on some players, but grassroots rugby is so far behind all the other codes, because no money is spent there.
Professional sportsperson is a life that many people would love and if that is your goal then you probably need to make sacrifices. It is similar to being an actor/rockstar. You might have to struggle at first.
And how far down do we go with these wages, do we want a minimum wage for all flegg players???
Look personally I think Willie like many players fails to grasp the whole picture and simply believes that players are the be all and end all. He also struggles with the concept that $25000 or $30000 is enough money for most young single people to get by on.
I was talking to a guy from the cowboys the other day, a former player who now works for the club and he said one of the biggest problems is that a lot of young players, guys who can't even make young guns but are signed to the club see football as their major income stream. He said it just shouldn't be that way. Kids need to understand football is their secondary income, because quite simply if we make it the case that every flegg player can make say $40000 a year they don't need to do anything else. So they have not working at all, gaining no skills and for 80% of them they will never make it past flegg. So we end up with a 21 year old who now has no work skills, has no future as a professional footballer and the best he can probably pick up is say $15000 a year at a non nrl related qld cup or jim beam side if he is lucky.
Look if you are in the top 25 and have to be fulltime then yes there should be a minimum wage, say $50000 which is plenty to live on. If this new under 20 comp needs to be close to fulltime then perhaps a minimum wage there of $20000, thats as much as many uni students live off making their sacrifices before getting more money as professionals.
I think we could raise rep payments to say $15000 a game, that means if you play 3 origins and 5 tri nations matches you could earn an extra $120000 if you played every game.Thats about a cost of $2 million for the games rep players which for mine is sustainable.
