The NRL's incoming head of football, Brian Canavan, believes a cap on third-party arrangements could be a potential solution to ensure there are no more salary-cap scandals like the one Parramatta are embroiled in.
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Canavan will finish up his executive post at the Gold Coast Titans to take up the role vacated by Todd Greenberg at Rugby League Central in July. The respected administrator will have a number of pressing issues to contend with, but none more so than the controversial TPA protocols.
As it stands, there is no limit on the number or value of TPAs for players on any team, so long as they are negotiated at arm's length from the club. The system has raised concerns about the growing disparity between rich and poor clubs at a time when the salary cap is being hailed as the great leveler of playing talent.
The NRL has already flagged its intention to introduce a cap on football department spending to limit the gap between the haves and have nots, although there is no landing point on how the initiative will be implemented.
The NRL engaged former Melbourne CEO Mark Evans as a consultant to review the TPA system, which is considered too complex given there are five types of third party. Canavan, who stressed his opinions are his own based on experiences in club land rather than those of the governing body, believed the Eels scandal provided cause to review player sponsorships.
"Unfortunately the scenario at Parramatta has imposed on the game to address the TPA issue," Canavan said.
"I'd only be expressing a personal view, but from a club [perspective], do we put some rules around it such as 'do we cap it?' You would consider that.
"The preliminary work Mark Evans has done will be revisited, I would think, to see if there are any good ideas – and there were some very sound ideas.
"What Mark presented is that you categorise players at different levels. So obviously the higher profile players like Johnathan Thurston, he can earn virtually whatever he likes and so he should.
"However, other players without the same profile could have certain parameters around how you would assign a market value to their profile to an outside company.
"Or you could just put a cap on it and say 'each club can only have a maximum of x number of TPA dollars.' That would be another cap.
"I haven't delved into it too much but as a fallout from the Parramatta situation, we need to address this."
Bernie Gurr, who like Canavan is a former Roosters chief executive, was the first league identity to propose a club cap on TPAs. Gurr, anointed by Peter Sterling as the ideal person to take charge of strife-town Parramatta, believed a cap of about $500,000 would be an appropriate limit.
"If you are touting the salary cap as being fair and equitable, there's no way you can allow a significant part of it – which is the TPAs – to show such inequity," Gurr told Fairfax Media in March.
Canavan said he was looking forward to working with all stakeholders to grow the game.
"I'm about collaboration and evidence-based decision making in anything I've done throughout my career," Canavan said.
"Being at the governing body I want to provide good service to all our stakeholders and that includes under 6s to our representative teams."
The Titans are disappointed to be losing Canavan just a few months after he was appointed but believed the game would benefit from his experience.
"We'll find someone that can build on the foundations he has laid," said Titans CEO Graham Annesley. "He'll be missed, but at he's not lost to the game."
