Peter V’Landys is willing to undermine the integrity of the salary cap system. Clint Newton is willing to do what no union leader should contemplate, and advocate for players to earn below market rate. The league is going to create a system to entrench the power of the top end of the market.
And it’s just so Hudson Young can sign with the Chiefs.
The story so far. Hudson Young wanted to go to the Chiefs for that sweet tax-free cash. The Raiders offered him $1.1m a year, and the NRL cap auditor said that the Chiefs would have to get up to $1m in order to meet the NRL’s salary cap rules. These rules exist to ensure teams like the Chiefs, but also the Broncos, the Bunnies, and the Roosters can’t sign all the talent in the competition by underpaying them on the books, and overpaying them in other benefits. The only difference between the Chiefs and the rest is now we can measure the difference.
In Hudson’s circumstance the story was clear. The Chiefs would have to pay $100k more a season than they offered Hudson, something they were unwilling to do, because despite the tax-free set-up, they still have to fit everything under the cap. The Chiefs could still have Huddo. They just didn’t want to pay $1m a year for him. They said as much.
Instead, Vlando, with Clint Newton, has come up with something called ‘exceptional circumstances’ as an exception to the rule. This would allow Huddo to get paid $900k a season, presumably because the tax-free nature of it takes it above the market rate. Vlando says he doesn’t want the cap rorted. This is exactly what it is.
The market rate rule isn’t about whether the player will get more financial benefit from taking a deal. Otherwise the Roosters, Broncos, and Bunnies would just sign everyone. The rule is about ensuring a level playing field across the competition, equalising recruitment conditions. This is not about personal financial outcomes.
It’s baffling that Clint Newton has apparently agreed to this. Newton thinks he is helping Huddo get more, but even in this circumstance he is going to agree to something that will allow Hudson to get less. He’s worth a million plus on the cap. In Canberra that means $1.1m a year, proper schools, no crime and a health system that works. In Papua New Guinea that means at least $1m tax-free and compound life, $100k more a year than the Chiefs are willing to pay him. Newton is costing Hudson Young $300k tax-free over the life of the PNG deal.
It’s not his job to police the salary cap, but that he can’t see the unintended consequences of this is gobsmacking. It’s not hard to see how this will be manipulated in the future to either extract players into powerful teams, or to pressure them into taking less. Now it’s allowing Huddo to get tax-free cash at the Chiefs. In the future it will be a young player being told by his club to take less to stay there, even with bigger bids from other suitors.
Newton has failed at the core point of his job – protecting the interests of all players. He is banking on V’Landys to hold an undefined line with a vague new rule to ensure the integrity of the system, something that both of them just failed at.
The Chiefs will now make their pitch that they can pay unders for Huddo. It seems Vlando’s mind is made up as to whether Hudson could go. But will it mean he does? There’s been a bizarre tension between what’s played out in public, and what Coach Stuart seems to think is going on. Will the ‘Hudson Young rule’ be created and then not used by Hudson?
I doubt it. This final decision from Vlando seems certain to have ended Hudson’s time in Canberra. He’ll go to Papua New Guinea, last a season, maybe two, and then ask out. Then the Roosters will pick him up on the cheap. The system works.
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