No more broken contracts: NRL’s bid to stop more Mattersons
August 24, 2020 9:53am
Source: FOX SPORTS

The NRL is planing to put a stop to players attempting to break contracts with their current club to take up lucrative new deals with a rival side.
The Sydney Morning Herald claims that the NRL are examining a proposal to put an end to players quitting clubs when they are enticed away by the lure of a big payday.

The suggested ruling comes as a result of a number of recent cases including that of Ryan Matterson who quit the Tigers in bitter circumstances for a move to the Eels.

The NRL will look at the option of banning clubs from tabling offers to players which would see them earn money with a rival club.

Josh Addo-Carr could be the last to take advantage of the current rules as he seeks a return to his native Sydney.

The Storm winger was given permission to speak to rival clubs after he cited family issues as the reason for his desire to leave Melbourne.

He is still under contract with Melbourne until the end of next year and the Storm have listed a number of criteria that must be met to secure his signature.

His new manager is said to now be shopping him around as a fullback and asking for $800,000 – a huge upgrade on his $400,000 deal – which has put the Storm off-side.

“There will be a complete review in the off-season,” ARLC chairman Peter V’landys told The Herald.

“I can assure you we will be addressing the frustrations of the fans.”

The Storm had tried to engineer a swap deal with young Tiger Tommy Talau which would see Addo-Carr return to Concord.

But Michael Maguire is understood to have knocked that proposition back

I’m glad they’re waiting for us to give JAC a huge pay increase before changing the rules. Nice of them.

Good move by Madge.
I think we’ve seen enough of Talau to know that he has a bit of potential. I’d hate to see his name added to the long list of players in our “Laments” thread.
I wouldn’t mind seeing JAC back here at the right price (for a winger) but not at the cost of young player like Talau.

It will be interesting to see what V’landys comes up with regarding contracts. Not much info in this article.

Player managers will be scheming.

@Telltails said in NRL’s bid to stop more Mattersons:

Player managers will be scheming.

My heart bleeds for them.

They will just adjust contract to earn more after their current term would finish or upgrade at that time. Can’t really see how they can stop them fully.

Never go full “Matterson”

“The NRL will look at the option of banning clubs from tabling offers to players which would see them earn money with a rival club.”

Huh? Parra wasn’t allowed to have tabled an offer to Matterson while he was contracted - it was a sly back door deal.

Are they going to do something about players that do a full preseason with a club, play 10 games then jump ship and a team ends up playing against the same player 2 weeks in a row?

How can anyone have “pride in a jersey” when they end up wearing 2 different jerseys in the same season?

I thought the most interesting part of the article was that JAC is asking for 800k.

“Tell him he’s dreamin’”

Look this isn’t the way too handle it …players are less likely to take chances with clubs like us …if you make clubs and players managers more accountable they will have a far better outcome

@Sart0ri said in NRL’s bid to stop more Mattersons:

I thought the most interesting part of the article was that JAC is asking for 800k.

“Tell him he’s dreamin’”

considering it seems we are the only club in for his services…

I’d offer 500k with incentives if he plays x amount of time at fb…

will they enforce the same rules with coaches?

@izotope said in NRL’s bid to stop more Mattersons:

will they enforce the same rules with coaches?

If I recall correctly Greenberg brought in a anti-poaching rule immediately after Ivan signed with Panthers.

Just add the players current contract value on top of his new contract value into the destination clubs cap for the term of the new contract. Player is receiving 300k currently, new club offers him 500k for 3 years, the new club takes 800k hit to their cap for next 3 years. Don’t know too many clubs that would be willing to do that for any player makes it even harder the better the player is.

Or better still the NRL just refuses to register the players new contract until the term remaining with the current club expires.