BY MICHAEL BYRNES
The last thing the NRL needs is to go to war with the RLPA over an internal player draft, and kick an own goal for the game’s rival codes.
Growing consternation at the NRL’s broken player transfer system has prompted some of the game’s best thought bubblers to again raise the spectre of an internal player draft. Make no mistake — of all the potential solutions available to the game’s administration, an internal draft would be the worst imaginable outcome. It’s a combative, negative and completely unnecessary restraint on a player’s earning capacity, and there are few positives that would offset the bitter reaction it would provoke from the players.When the draft and salary cap concepts were first introduced by the game’s hierarchy in the early 90’s, it was often argued that both controls were necessary to produce a truly level playing field. As we know, this argument has proven spurious, with no repeat premiership winner in the 19 year history of the NRL, and 12 of the 16 clubs holding up the trophy in that time. In fact, the level of parity enjoyed by the NRL is the envy of all the rival codes in the domestic market; And all achieved without a draft.
The argument recently advanced by Phil Gould in support of a draft is that the league’s cellar-dwellers are contributing to unsustainable inflation in the player market due to their desperation to pry the competition’s elite players away from their incumbent clubs. Gould’s draft would require any off-contract player to either re-sign with their current club, or accept the offer from the lowest-ranked club that wants them (more or less). That is a completely artificial and unnecessary construct. (continued below)
The salary cap has proven more than adequate at talent distribution, but that’s not the source of Gould’s beef. He thinks that the elite players are earning too much, taking up too great a slice of the salary cap. But that’s just the market working. If one club is paying overs for their key playmaker, they’re spreading fewer dollars across the rest of their roster. Is that a recipe for success? Well that depends on your talent identification and retention skills, which sounds completely reasonable for a professional sporting competition. Gould’s draft removes this as an area of difference and competitive advantage for clubs.
There are simply far too many quality players in the competition for all clubs to be paying a million plus dollars a year to their halfback. If you lose your key playmaker to that sort of offer, you make a splash somewhere else, or it helps your retention in other areas. The salary cap will continue to do its job; I think Gould and others are jumping at shadows a bit here.
The fact the NRL has been able to maintain such an exemplary level playing field without having to resort to a draft is one of the game’s finest administrative achievements. The deficiencies in the player transfer system can be addressed in other ways, without inflicting the self-harm of an internal player draft.
