No surprises there.. As usual the rules are enforced to the letter of the law for our club but if this were Tedesco, Cook or Haas, the NRL would have changed the rule effective immediately.
It's an absurd rule that will likely get changed in the future and as usual, our club will be the worst case scenario test case that leads to change in the future. But of course that doesn't help us now...
Anyway, the club should offer Douhehi a contract or front end our own contracts like others have said. At least use that 350k in some capacity. There's no point having it sit there unused..