Cap sleuth needs more troops: Greenberg - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Cap sleuth needs more troops: Greenberg

By David Beniuk, Wayne Heming & Ben Horne 29/04/2010 05:29:54 PM Comments (0)

Canterbury CEO Todd Greenberg says the NRL salary cap team needs beefing up if it is to be a step ahead of the cheats.

The NRL has defended cap auditor Ian Schubert's team over its handling of the five-year-long Melbourne scandal, pointing out 74 breaches have been identified across the league and $3.8 million in fines meted out on top of the Storm, Bulldogs and Warriors being docked points.

But Greenberg believes the effectiveness of the league's investigations will be an issue at next month's NRL club CEO's meeting.

"Does Ian Schubert need more staff? Absolutely he does," Greenberg told reporters on Thursday.

"Can the game afford to give him more staff? Maybe not.

"But the game needs to ask itself that question going forward - do we need more investigations, do we need to police it differently, do we need to go more diligently at clubs?

"The answer's probably yes, how you do that's another problem."

Greenberg said there was "no doubt" NRL chief executive David Gallop, who put an accounting firm on standby to help with any further investigations on Wednesday, was already looking at making more resources available.

Salary cap issues were also on the mind of Brisbane coach Ivan Henjak, who said changes were needed to keep players in the code as he awaited the decision of Test star Israel Folau on joining Super rugby's Melbourne Rebels.

"The salary cap doesn't allow us to match $800,000," Henjak said.

"We've got some real competitors out there at the moment and until our salary cap situation changes, or there are some adjustments to it in terms of the players a club develops or long-term players at the club, we're always going to be in this situation."

Henjak suggested unlimited third party sponsorship top-ups could be the answer.

"Maybe we could top up the really good players with their representative payments like cricket do and I think the ARU (Australian Rugby Union) as well," Henjak said.

"We just need a better system."

Henjak also echoed his old boss Wayne Bennett's call for a negotiating window so players could keep their minds on the job during the season.

"There's no good time for these things to be done but the best time is at the end of the season when there's no more footy," he said.

"If it's Izzy (Folau) or any player ... off their game (weighing up an offer) the product suffers and then it affects the game and the fans."

Wests Tigers coach Tim Sheens said the limits of the cap would always be open to debate.

"Where do you draw the line, what's the magic number?" he said.

"It's never enough, is it?

"The league's got to draw a line somewhere, we'd all argue about where that line is.

"I'm not saying the money shouldn't go up at some stage but let's not kid ourselves that it's going to fix the problem.

"The problem is always that wages go up as soon as the available money goes up and it goes up to the top 20 per cent (of players)."

Brought to you by AAP AAP © 2024 AAP

0 Comments about this article

Post a comment about this article

Please sign in to leave a comment.
Becoming a member is free and easy, sign up here.

« All sports news