Robbie Farah Is Right, And So Are The Wests Tigers

Jun 06, 2016 League Freak Wests Tigers 0

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It is time for Robbie Farah to leave the Wests Tigers. The club needs to move on from him and the drama that seems to surround him. They have a young side that is in a completely different phase to the one Farah finds himself in towards the end of his career. Farah’s presence is now a distraction, one that is destabilizing the club. Farah needs to cop the tip and leave.

However…

Robbie Farah signed a long term deal with a crumbling Wests Tigers club, committing some of the best year of his career to a team that was in a terrible situation. The club signed off on a big contract to keep Farah at the club, no one forced them to do that. Farah signed with the club knowing his long term deal gave him some sort of stability. He deserves every last cent that the club promised to him. He should not join a long list of players who have been “moved on” by the club at the players cost.

I can see both sides of this argument.

I always tend to lean towards the players in these situations. Our NRL clubs are run like complete and utter garbage. The people that run NRL clubs make a long list of terrible decisions. Signing players to massive contracts and then not honouring those contracts in my opinion is very low.

Look at the Penrith Panthers right now. How many times have they signed a player to a long contract only to push them out the door without any hesitation at the first sign that those players have stopped drinking managements kool-aid? Its a disgrace, and far more of an issue within the game than players asking out of their contracts early.

If you were in Robbie Farah’s position, having committed to the club, settling down and thinking you’d play out your career there, having financial commitments of your own based on the long term deal you have signed, and all of that was put in jeopardy because the club has changed its mind, how would you feel?

I’d be livid.

From the clubs point of view however, the outlook is very different. Many people who use to make decisions have moved on. The current coach wants to move forward and keep changing the team, but that’s hard to do when you have so much money locked into an older player who you don’t feel fits into your plans moving forward.

The real issue here is that clubs are allowed to sign long term deals and then pressure players to break their own deal by telling them they are not wanted. The NRL Players Association should be all over this issue, it costs their own members hundreds of thousands of dollars, and clubs do it without a second thought for the commitment they themselves made. It is a terrible part of the game that needs to end.

I wonder if there would be some way for clubs to pay out one players contract in full, every five years in certain circumstances to stop players being short changed. If a player over the age of say 30, who has played a certain number of NRL games, was no longer wanted by the club, what would it hurt to allow that player to leave the club, paid in full, and have them sign elsewhere?

Limits would need to be put in place so that clubs didn’t use this as a way to subvert the salary cap. However, a move like this would be good for players and HATED by clubs as it would mean that they would be forced to literally pay for any “mistakes” they made with the way they handled their salary cap.

While I feel sympathy for Farah in this regard, I also see where the Wests Tigers are coming from. This is just a rotten situation for the club to be dealing with, and it won’t end until Farah has left the club.

Don’t think for a second that Farah hasn’t got people at the club saying to him “Do what is best by the club. Show you care by doing what is right by the Tigers. Everyone will respect you for that”.

Respect doesn’t pay the bills.

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• Robbie Farah

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