Heath's headline: Loyalty

[Dave The Man]

In light of what’s happened this week in the NRL regarding Sonny Bill Williams, player contracts and long-term deals have been hot topics of conversation at the club and in the media.

The way Sonny Bill went about leaving his Australian rugby league club, the Bulldogs, was probably the wrong way. Just to pick up and leave without telling anyone is not great.

If you can’t continue at a club or you don’t want to continue under certain conditions, there are certain ways to go about it, and I think he’s made a poor decision, but we don’t really know what’s happened behind the scenes so we can’t really judge him based on that.

Money has obviously outweighed any loyalty in his situation. Perhaps he just wants more money, perhaps he thinks he’s worth more than what his current contract is worth.

As a player, the way to judge our value as an entire group is to look at the television rights, and given the players are central to the quality of the overall product, the value of the television rights is a good indication of what we are worth.

I think the current system is pretty good, with our salary cap set at $8.5 million per club in 2008, and the television rights worth $780 million over five years to Channel Seven, Channel 10 and Foxtel. In relation to what we think we are worth relative to the TV rights, there should be a certain figure or set percentage that would fairly reflect players’ pay.

A good way of judging how the game is growing and performing is by the television rights and I think players’ pay should reflect global standards in terms of what percentage of the overall revenue players in North American and Europe receive for their sports, where a salary cap is evident.

In the case of Sonny Bill, money is one thing, while freedom of choice is another. One interesting development in recent years has been the increased talk revolving around the introduction of free agency into our game, where it will be much easier for players to move to their club of choice once they’re out of contract.

I think if you want to go to a club and that club really wants you, then the player should be able to move. The salary cap will always ensure no club can become too powerful and pay more than other clubs, but you get situations where brothers want to play with each other, players want to return to their home state or just move to further their careers.

If the contract has expired, that’s where free agency comes into play. If you sign a contract, stick to it, but if the club is standing in your way of moving on once your contract has expired, the player should be able to leave and go to the club of his choice, perhaps after a certain number of years in the system or at one club, but I prefer the idea of giving uncontracted players complete freedom of choice.

The main difference between the NRL and the AFL and why a Sonny Bill Williams situation will never happen is because we don’t have a competing overseas market, where there is more money.

Given Sonny Bill was offered $3 million dollars over two years at French club, and he was contracted to earn in the vicinity of $2 million over five years here, when you weigh up that, you can clearly see the lure. But there’s also that loyalty factor where you have signed that long-term deal, and even though you are contracted, overseas clubs will still be chasing you, and it makes it hard for players in that situation.

Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo is another person in a similar situation. Last year he signed a five-year deal with Manchester United. He’s at the top of his game, they won the premiership and the champions league, he’s player of the year, and then you get a massive club, without any salary cap restrictions, like Real Madrid, offering double what Manchester United are paying him, so he might be thinking ‘why should I be playing here for half of what I can get elsewhere?’.

That’s an example of how contracts overseas, where the salary cap doesn’t exist, don’t mean a hell of a lot. I think in AFL contracts are pretty watertight.

The bottom line is, if you’re a player, in any sport, and you’re a chance to leave your current employer, don’t lock yourself into a long-term contract, and if you do, it’s your choice, so honour it.

Heaters Thoughts

Story Here

 

[Kirby]

Who else suspects that this was largely ghost written?

 

[Dave The Man]

Who else suspects that this was largely ghost written?

I think Heater talks to someone and they write it up for him. Don't think he could sit down that long