Test stars take fight to ALRC over salary cap rise

THE game's most powerful players want ALRC chairman John Grant to personally explain his $225 million future fund.

League stars

THE game's most powerful players want ALRC chairman John Grant to personally explain his $225 million future fund, which has emerged as the prime culprit for their ongoing pay dispute with officialdom.

In an unprecedented show of unity, Test stars Jonathan Thurston and Cameron Smith dashed from interstate to join representative peers Robbie Farah, Jarryd Hayne, Michael Croker and Jason King for yesterday's crucial negotiations with ALRC management at League Central.

The players entered the 9am meeting amid talk of boycotts should their demands for a significantly increased salary cap not be satisfied. And while the meeting was convivial enough, the NRL's response failed to placate them.

The major sticking point is the 2013 salary cap, which the NRL provisionally set at $5 million earlier this year. The player union, RLPA, want $6.5 million and there was only the slightest accommodation on yesterday's bargaining table.

Interim NRL chief executive Shane Mattiske offered a $5.2 million cap for 2013, with half the $200,000 increase coming from bonus marquee player allowances.

The NRL's other suggestions for new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) included:STATE of Origin match payments to rise 50 per cent from $20,000 to $30,000. The RLPA wants $40,000.

MINIMUM wage to rise from $55,000 to $65,000. The RLPA wants $80,000.

NO increase in finals bonuses after the players had demanded six-figure guarantees.

RETIREMENT fund contributions to rise from $3000 to $4500 per annum. The RLPA wanted to the AFL model, which invests over $18,000 for each player every season.

Most of the players' demands have been configured around comparative studies of what their peers in other codes, specifically AFL, earn.

Their salary cap calculation is based on a 25 per cent share of the game's entire revenue, which will be almost doubled over the next five years thanks to the $1.025 billion broadcast deal. Although it's a $1 million jump from the present level, the NRL's proposed $5.2 million cap works out to be a smaller share of the whole pie.

The players want a commensurate pay rise, particularly when annual club grants have nearly doubled to $7 million and incoming CEO Dave Smith will earn twice as much as former boss David Gallop.

Hence why the likes of Farah and King repeatedly challenged Mattiske to explain how and why the ALRC decided to invest $45 million per annum into the future fund over the course of the five-year broadcast deal.

While the players aren't opposed to money being put aside for junior development and expansion, they feel the ALRC's desire to save for a rainy day is costing them directly.

At yesterday's meeting they sought a thorough explanation of how $225 million will be spent. Not content with Mattiske's responses, they demanded to be addressed by Grant or one of the seven other independent commissioners.

A follow-up meeting was tentatively scheduled for next Friday, with the players now expecting to receive a detailed presentation of the how the future fund works.

If they are still unsatisfied the stand-off is likely to grow more serious - and possibly result in the boycott of next year's All Stars fixture.

"Obviously we are still a fair way off the mark," Farah said last night.

"We aren't ruling anything out, but at the moment we're working hard to reach an agreement and that's all we're thinking about for now.

"We might need to look at our options if we can't."