Sacked coach payouts to come under NRL cap under new proposal
The days of long coaching contracts and fat payouts when those contracts are torn up could be over, under a new plan to both punish and protect NRL clubs from themselves.
NRL
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NRL clubs who sack their coach will be penalised for the entire length of the torn-up contract under a radical new proposal designed to deter rampant sackings and long-term deals.
The ARL Commission wants to both save clubs from financially crippling themselves, while also punishing them, by deducting any payout figure for sacking a head coach from the club‘s annual $6 million football department salary cap.
The deduction from a club’s football department cap, which can be used by clubs to pay for assistant coaches, physiotherapists, high performance staff and the latest gym equipment, would run the course of the contract that the sacked coach was signed under.
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If the rule was in place today, an estimated $500,000 would be swiped from the Broncos football department every year for the next four years after the club paid-out Anthony Seibold an estimated $2 million to walk away on Tuesday only two years into his five-year deal.
At their meeting on Thursday, the ARL Commission discussed the new rule in great detail and was considered an urgent discussion point following the coaching carnage that has unfolded this season.
Five coaches, including Canterbury‘s Dean Pay, the Warriors Stephen Kearney, Cowboys mentor Paul Green, Dragons coach Paul McGregor and Seibold have all been shown the door in 2020.
It is the highest amount of coaching turnover since 1998, according to the Fox Sports Lab. The coach-sacking-cap was met with positive feedback from within the Commission and with further development required, it could be introduced as soon as next month.
After learning of the proposal, The Saturday Telegraph contacted Commission chairman Peter V’landys to discuss the motivation behind implementing the new rule.
“I understand from a club‘s perspective that they are beholden to results and when you’re not getting results, most clubs being elected by members, they take action,’’ V’Landys said.
“But you’ve got to make decisions that are also fiscally responsible, otherwise you affect the finances and never more than before do we all need to be strategic in our spending.
“There‘s got to be some level where it (sacking a coach) is a disincentive and that’s where we’ll look at amortising it over the course of what is remaining on the contract, as opposed to rolling it into one lump-sum in the first year.
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“We’ve seen clubs happy to do that, cop a fine (for breaching the football cap), wear it and move on.
“But this rule allows the decision to stay with them, so they need to be smart in making that decision.‘’
The potential of the new rule emerged after Roosters coach Trent Robinson urged clubs to be better at developing them.
“I think the clubs need to take responsibility – they don’t know how to develop coaches for the most part,” Robinson said.
“All they do is hire a coach, and if they don’t do well, they get rid of them quite quickly.
“So the development of coaches within a club needs to improve.’’