Show me the money: Poll reveals fans want NRL player salaries made public

PAUL CRAWLEY says it’s time the NRL made player salaries public to end confusion and distrust - and the fans agree. See the damning results and vote.

Spencer Leniu is set join the Roosters next season. Picture: Jonathan Ng

It’s time for the NRL to stop short-changing fans and make player salaries transparent.

Tell us what every player on every club’s top-30 roster is being paid, and make it down to the last cent.

If it’s good enough for American sports like NBA and NFL, surely it should be good enough for the NRL as well.

Tell us exactly what Mitchell Moses is being paid to stay at Parramatta after knocking back in excess of $1.3m-a-season that was reportedly on the table at Wests Tigers.

Or the $1.2m Moses could have got at the Bulldogs.

Tell us what the Dolphins forked out to entice Herbie Farnworth and Tom Flegler away from the Broncos.

Or what the Roosters paid to steal Dominic Young off the struggling Newcastle Knights.

And on the back of the Young deal last week, it was the Chooks again getting under everyone’s guard this week to sign in-demand Panthers forward Spencer Leniu.

Spencer Leniu is set join the Roosters next season. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Help us understand why the Roosters are really that much better at managing their salary cap than most of the other clubs.

Buzz Rothfield wrote an excellent article this week detailing how the Roosters roster was in fact worth nearly $2 million over the cap, but they were still not cheating.

As much as we trust Buzz’s sources, wouldn’t it be in the game’s best interests to explain to the fans how this works by making the official figures lodged with the NRL’s salary cap auditor public?

As it is, it only makes Trent Robinson look like the spoilt kid at Christmas who gets to take home all the best toys.

No one is suggesting the Roosters are guilty of rorting the cap in any way, shape or form.

But just stop the charade of telling us the reason the salaries aren’t made public is to protect player privacy.

The reality is there is no privacy as it is.

The media already put a guesstimate on every deal that is done.

As soon as player starts negotiations there is a running commentary, with information usually supplied by either the club or the agent.

But by not publishing accurate figures it just adds to the distrust.

So if there is nothing to hide, why hide it?

The NFL have no problem telling us Aussie-born star Jordan Mailata is the $95 million man playing for the Philadelphia Eagles.

And you can log on a website and in seconds not only find out NBA superstar Steph Curry’s salary at Golden State is $320 million over four years, but also get a year-by-year breakdown calculated to the final cent.

Mitchell Moses’s contract negotiations have dragged on. Picture: NRL/Gregg Porteous

Yet here we are left guessing how the Roosters can fit three of the four World Cup semi-final fullbacks into their squad in James Tedesco, Joey Manu and Joseph Suaali’i, along with the rest of their stars.

But then you get clubs like the Dragons who only ever seem to sign second-hand scraps, or the Knights, who can’t afford to keep Dom Young.

NRL fans deserve to know how this all adds up.

I wrote a column about this exact issue back in 2018.

Most of the feedback at the time was that it was long overdue to come clean to fans.

Here we are five years down the track and nothing’s changed.

It’s about time it did.