We'll show you the money if players want, says stunned O'Neill

[travelling_gerry]

Greg Growden Chief Rugby Correspondent | May 2, 2009


THE Australian Rugby Union says it would welcome the opportunity to make public the salaries it pays its Test players. This follows Wallabies prop Matt Dunning's call for the ARU to reveal how it rewards its players to reveal any major differences in the deals offered.

Dunning claimed there were discrepancies in the Wallabies pay scale, including what had been on offer to respective front-rowers in recent renegotiations.

ARU chief executive John O'Neill said last night he was "lost for words" when he read Dunning's comments, and would take up the issue with Australian Rugby Union Players' Association president Tony Dempsey.

"We've always had a policy of absolute confidentiality about what players earn, especially as there has been extreme sensitivity from RUPA and the players around divulging that in the public arena," O'Neill said. "But if the players want us to disclose their salaries, excluding third-party arrangements, we're quite happy to do that."
O'Neill explained that Dunning, whose renegotiations with the ARU recently stalled, was among the union's top 15 player salary earners.

The ARU chief added he had been surprised by recent by Australian forwards that, compared to back-line players, they were undervalued. He said that of the top 20 earners last year, 13 were forwards, and that six of those were front-rowers.

O'Neill also confirmed that an alternative trans-Tasman Asia-Pacific tournament was discussed at a meeting between ARU and New Zealand Rugby Union officials in Sydney on Thursday. This follows Australia and New Zealand being in major conflict with South Africa over expansion plans for Super rugby.

The ARU and NZRU said yesterday that they wanted to continue working towards a 15-team Super competition from 2011 in partnership with South Africa. However, repeated compromise calls from South Africa, including demands that their Currie Cup competition not be affected, had put that partnership at risk.

"We still want South Africa to stay in, but they have to accept that Super rugby is the pre-eminent competition," O'Neill said. "But if you start diluting the value and content of that competition and put a domestic competition in the form of Currie Cup as the preference, then we have a real problem."

If South Africa continues to stall, Australia and New Zealand will look on the Asia-Pacific competition as a viable alternative.

"It works," O'Neill said. "We didn't start all this with the trans-Tasman option being a preferred option. But when we looked at it and discussed it with our broadcast advisers and the broadcasters across Australia and New Zealand, they find it quite attractive.

"We haven't given up with South Africa. But there's a timetable which says we have to have the competition option in front of the broadcasters, News Limited and [South Africa's] SuperSport, by June 30…

"We're not going to be putting multiple options in front of the broadcasters. We'd make an absolute fool of ourselves. We've got to put up one option, and see what the broadcasters think of it."

O'Neill said that in the event of a split, the top teams of the trans-Tasman competition and the Currie Cup could play off.

* Wallabies back-rower Hugh McMeniman is expected to be sidelined for six months after injuring an ankle at Queensland Reds training.

http://www.rugbyheaven.com.au/news/n...982405744.html

[slomo]

yes please, it would be interesting to see the pay scale....

[tragic]

Are they calling Dunning's bluff?

[jono]

i'd be interested to see how its broken down as well.

but o'neil only mentioned test players. i would be more interested to see how they pay players who are not in the squad, but are on ARU top ups.

i would also want to see the payscales from a few years back, so we can see how the ARU increases the salaries of players who have fought their way into the squad. and on the flip side, have been forced out

[Swee_82]

Yeah... I wonder if Dunning ran that little idea by his team-mates- I'm sure they'd all appreciate having their renumeration details dragged through the press.

Don't need to be Einstien to guess what the RUPA would have to say about that plan I'd imagine.

[jono]

yeah, it's all well and good for HIM to want to know what everyone else earns. but does everyone else want everyone else to know what they earn?

[shasta]

Are they calling Dunning's bluff?

Not really. I think it's just JO'N's way of saying what most people, with the possible exceptions of Billy Bunter and RRG, are well aware of. That RUPA and the players they represent are the people most unwilling to have their earnings in the public domain.

[TOCC]

i cant see anything positive coming out of having the players salaries made public, if dunning and other players have issues and are interested in it, then maybe in a meeting with RUPA and the ARU they could privately dislclose the salaries of the players, but they shouldnt be made public.