NRL 2023: Peter V’landys tables $1.32 billion pay deal to players, RPLA to end CBA negotiations
The RLPA released a statement on Friday, claiming the commission had made false and offensive statements about the CBA talks. Now, Peter Beattie has returned serve.
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ARL Commissioner Peter Beattie insists that the commission is united behind Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo as the game’s most powerful and influential figures find themselves at the centre of an ugly slanging match with the players union.
Beattie also claimed the time had come for the game to shore up its future amid increasingly acrimonious talks over the collective bargaining agreement with the players.
“There are no divisions,” Beattie said.
“The reason is simple. We want to plan for the future of rugby league. Unless an amount – modest as it is – is set aside for building a future income asset base for the game then any future ARLC will have no resources to pay players if another Covid virus hits or our income base is reduced by some other challenge in this ever changing media landscape.
“It is a disgrace that it took until 2022 for the NRL to buy an asset – the Gambaro Hotel in Brisbane – to start future proofing the game.
“We are at the crossroads. Rugby League either starts thinking long term like champions to grow the game by future proofing it or thinks short term putting the future of the game at risk.”
Beattie – V’landys predecessor as chair of the ARLC – has been reluctant to speak publicly since handing over the reins but he felt compelled to support V’landys and Abdo given the current slanging match between head office and the players union.
The Rugby League Players Association released a statement of their own on Friday, claiming the commission had made false and offensive statements about the CBA talks.
In response to suggestions the playing group had not been presented with all the facts, the RLPA said: “To have the Commission publicly claim that the wider playing group has been misled during the CBA negotiations, purely because we are refusing to roll over for the Commission, is not only false but offensive and demonstrates a lack of regard to the sophistication of the playing group.
“As leaders of the players’ association, we could not have been more transparent with the wider playing group around the status of the negotiations and why we have rejected unsuitable and sub-standard proposals put forward by the NRL on behalf of the commission.
“Players have regularly attended CBA bargaining meetings, however not one commissioner has attended a meeting. Not even once.
“It was for this reason that it was surprising to read comments from the commission that accused both us as player leaders, and the RLPA as a whole, of misleading the playing group.
“This couldn’t be further from the truth. We would invite the Commission to join us at the table to better understand the position of the playing group and our clubs.”
Revealed: NRL’s ground breaking $1.3b pay deal for players
The ARL Commission has tabled a landmark $1 billion deal that will make NRL stars the highest-paid generation of players in rugby league’s 114-year history.
And rugby league’s female players have also been offered a groundbreaking package with the NRLW’s elite to share in a $115 million salary bonanza.
After months of fiery negotiations between the NRL, clubs and the Rugby League Players Association, News Corp can today lift the lid on the extraordinary pay deal to make the code’s stars richer than ever.
Incredibly, the seven-figure deal - which was tabled in late September and would finally seal rugby league’s most lucrative Collective Bargaining Agreement - has been rejected by the RLPA.
Top-secret documents obtained by News Corp show the NRL has offered a record $1.32 billion deal to the code’s 510 full-time stars over the next five years - the first $1b pay deal for players in the sport’s history.
The previous five-year deal was worth $980 million. The NRL’s latest offer represents a 34 per cent funding increase and would lift the average men’s salary from $325,000 to $400,000 next season.
That’s a pay rise of 23 per cent.
At a time when the nation’s wage growth is 2.7 per cent, NRL players stand to receive a pay rise 10 times that of the average Australian.
The average NRL player’s proposed $400,000 salary is more than four times the national average wage of $92,000.
The NRL have been accused of “lowballing” the players, but these figures are emphatic evidence the code’s professionals are in line for record pay days.
Contacted by News Corp, ARLC boss Peter V’landys was tight-lipped, saying: “The negotiations are at a sensitive stage. We are comfortable with the offer we have made to the players, but we won’t be negotiating in the media.”
It can also be revealed:
• The NRL has proposed a 2023 salary-cap figure of $12.5 million from $10.2m _ an increase of 22.5 per cent;
• NRL players have been offered an extra $222 million over the next five years;
• NRL Women are set to celebrate record salaries as part of a $115m funding injection over the next five years;
• The NRLW salary cap is slated to rise from $350,000 to $800,000 next season - a whopping 146 per cent pay rise for females; and
• V’landys wants the minimum wage for NRL development players to be lifted from $80,000 this season to $125,000 next season - a 56 per cent increase for rookies.
V’landys and NRL CEO Andrew Abdo hope to finalise a $300 million funding deal to the 17 clubs this month.
Then the NRL duo will attempt to convince the RLPA to accept the $1.32 billion pay bonanza for players, a scenario that would finally deliver the code’s CBA ahead of the 2023 premiership.
The NRL has been accused of hiding the code’s finances, but these proposed pay figures are in the hands of RLPA boss Clint Newton, who has previously warned V’landys and Abdo of the dangers of acting like a “dictatorship”.
Newton is as frustrated as anyone by the delay in CBA talks, which were originally planned to be concluded mid-season but have now dragged on beyond October 31, when the existing agreement expired.
The RLPA boss insists he is not looking to have V’landys dethroned as ARLC chairman, but vowed to continue to fight for player rights.
“Do we want players to be pot plants where it’s this ‘shut up and play’ type attitude?” Newton said.
“The fact is, by players advocating for improvements in their terms and conditions, that absolutely has an impact on the future of the game.
“We want players to be going to rugby league because we can say (the NRL has) the best remuneration, the best support, the best services, the best wellbeing and education programs and the best opportunity to not just be good players, but good people.
“And then when they transition to retirement they have the best protections in place.”
Asked if he is gunning for V’landys over the CBA Mexican stand-off, Newton said: “No, there’s no William Wallace here - we’re not putting heads on spikes.
“Peter’s clearly passionate about the game. What I’d like to believe is that the Commission, which is clearly led by Peter as chair, understands our claims, they respect our claims and they respect the role of the players.
“If we were all moving in the same direction, we could be an absolutely formidable force in Australian sport.”
COMMENT: PROOF NRL PLAYERS AREN’T BEING “LOWBALLED”
—Peter Badel
I wish my employer was the National Rugby League.
The exclusive revelations today of the NRL’s landmark $1.32 billion offer should finally put to bed the myopic, mind-numbing perception that the code’s elite stars are being ripped off by League Central.
NRL players are magnificent athletes, the finest of sporting entertainers. Their profession is among the most brutal, physically demanding in the world and, for that, they should be paid accordingly.
ARLC boss Peter V’landys recognises that. It’s why, under the latest offer tabled by the NRL, the players will be rewarded like never before.
They just need their representative body, the Rugby League Players Association, to shake hands with V’landys and Andrew Abdo and let the NRL’s stars get on with business and doing what they do best - play football.
The danger for the players is they risk being exposed as high-profile pawns in a high-stakes political negotiating game, many oblivious to the finer details of an NRL pay deal constructed to actually suit them.
I’ve covered the NRL for 25 years. In that time, I wish I had a dollar for every NRL CEO or official who whinged about their players being pampered, institutionalised individuals.
The majority do not reside in the real world.
Nathan Cleary is on $1.3 million at age 24. The Penrith superstar earns $100,000 a month.
At the same age, I was on $36,000 and flat out paying back my HECS debt.
At a time when everyday Australians are struggling with the cost of living, feeding families and paying rent and mortgages, the NRL is offering the code’s 510 full-time players a 22 per cent pay rise.
How many people in general society will get a 22 per cent wage hike this year?
Under the proposed pay deal, the average NRL player next season will be on $400,000.
The life span of an NRL player is vastly shorter than people in the national workforce and it’s understandable the RLPA would seek to fight for player rights in an attempt to maximise their members’ earning potential.
But to suggest the NRL is lowballing the playing group is political nonsense.
The RLPA should sign on the dotted line, put the boring CBA Mexican stand-off to rest and let the code celebrate the first wave of $1 billion NRL players.
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