V’landys open to revealing pay
PETER V’landys says he is open to making all NRL player salaries transparent, but only if the players agree to it.
There are renewed calls for the NRL to come clean on all player salaries as debate fires up about Sonny Bill Williams’s highly anticipated return for the Sydney Roosters at a bargain price.
Rival clubs privately question how the star-studded Roosters are able to swing another salary cap super deal so a player of Williams’s calibre can return on a hit-and-run mission on a reported $200,000 for the rest of the season.
“Transparency is friend,” V’landys said.
“However, we would never do it without the approval of the players because it is their personal details. your
“You have to remember, it is aggregated to get the salary cap – it is not just one player.
“Even though we are trying to keep clubs to account, at the end of the day it is the player’s salary that is out there. I respect that.”
If the deal comes off it will potentially represent one of the best bang-for-his-buck deals Roosters chairman Nick Politis has ever secured.
Politis has been the game’s greatest negotiator for decades with a stack of his players on way less than market value.
And while rival clubs often whinge about the deals Politis gets done, the Roosters still have to go through all the same salary cap hoops as other clubs to get the NRL to sign off.
In fairness, this one will most likely only include four regular season games along with however many weeks the Roosters go in the finals as they chase a third straight premiership.
Some have even questioned if there will be more risk than reward given Williams turns 35 early next month and hasn’t played in the NRL for five and a half seasons.