The bean counters are so creative they should be handed the No.7
THE NRL salary cap, rather than creating a level playing field, is being manipulated by clubs to produce a surface like a country paddock where one team runs uphill in the first half and downhill in the second. Or the reverse.
Back- and front-loading of players' contracts means clubs have some years when they face salary cap fines and others when they are talent poor and cash rich.
How else do you explain the Roosters saving $1.6 million by jettisoning players in 2007, yet having to trim their roster even more to fund a three-year, back-loaded contract for Willie Mason?
Mason's former club, Canterbury, with $1 million to spend but no top players to buy, face an uphill battle in 2008 but can make a downhill run at the premiership the following year, particularly with the Storm's Israel Folau and Parramatta's Jarryd Hayne coming off contract.
The salary cap is creating some crazy economics. The Dragons dumped back-rower Corey Payne because his sign-on fee of $180,000, plus the $2000 he received from each of 18 first-grade games, meant he would have been listed on the St George Illawarra roster at more than $200,000.
Payne transferred to Wests Tigers, who don't have to count the incentive payments. He will be listed at $50,000, and Wests Tigers will back-load the contract of the 23-year-old, meaning the club will make a short-term gain for some long-term financial pain.
Payne, studying for a commerce/accountancy degree, obviously understands the creative mathematics of leaving a club where he would earn $200,000 for another where he receives $50,000.
The Dragons can't be accused of financial mismanagement of their cap because injuries meant many marginal players earned top match fees in 2007.
Rangi Chase, a five-eighth the Dragons bought from Wests Tigers, was on a small sign-on fee in 2007 but the pre-season injury to Mark Gasnier meant he earned big money in incentives and will occupy significant salary-cap space next season.
The Roosters are seeking to offload winger John Williams, purchased last year from Parramatta, to find more room for Mason. Williams has been targeted, not for lack of skill, but because his 2007 sign-on of $50,000 will more than double next year.
Roosters fans are perplexed how a $700,000 mid-season clean-out of players, including Chris Flannery to England's Super League and three halves to NRL clubs, hasn't created more salary-cap space.
The Bondi Junction bean counters had another purge at the end of the season, saving $900,000 on the exit of Craig Wing (Souths) and others, such as Joel Monaghan (Canberra), Heath L'Estrange (Manly) and Charlie Tonga (Huddersfield).
Asked where the $1.6 million went, Roosters chairman Nick Politis correctly pointed to the purchase of Bulldogs prop Mark O'Meley ($400,000) and hooker/half James Aubusson ($150,000) from Melbourne. OK, but there's still a missing $1 million, ignoring the $200,000 increase in the cap in 2008 and the recent $250,000 saving with Ashley Harrison's transfer to the Gold Coast.
"A few players got upgraded," Politis conceded, partly explaining the $1m "black hole".
True, promising half Mitchell Pearce jumped from $70,000 to more than $200,000 but it seems a few contracts, such as Braith Anasta's, were back-loaded as well. The Roosters cycle is set to be repeated, with Mason's big money coming in the latter years of his contract.
Not all the monies recouped from jettisoning players is saved from the salary cap. When a club takes over a player's contract it is usually at a discount, meaning some of the sign-on fee is absorbed and therefore counted in the cap of the club which released him.
In other words, some of the Roosters $1 million "black hole" includes residual payments for players who have been moved on.
The Bulldogs won't waste money saved on O'Meley, Mason and half Brett Sherwin but can front-load Sonny Bill Williams's contract, paying him some of his 2009 money in 2008 to have a big bank to raid other clubs.
Penalties for cheating on the salary cap means all clubs now abide by it, but the practice of rolling payments bids up the price of all players. Clubs spend on available talent to the $4 million limit, but when a player they can't afford comes on the market, they back-load and off-load, allowing the club which released him to front-load, upgrade and splurge.
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