Seriously, why are we unable to have a bet on the “Next NRL Head Coach to be Unceremoniously Sacked”?
If nothing else, it’s a revenue stream opportunity that’s certainly been missed. Gambling on rugby league’s Game of Thrones might serve as an entertaining off-season pursuit.
Though I’ve searched high and low on the Betfair and SportsBet apps, nowhere at all can you locate such short-term investing opportunities.
Whereas one certainly can get set on Betfair on who’ll be the next leader of the Conservative Party in Ol’ Blighty, nowhere can you gamble on the career prospects of NRL coaches. Why, is that exactly?
Indeed, why couldn’t I slap my folding stuff down this week on the surest of sure things, that Des Hasler was going?
The answers, of course, lie in the fact the NRL banned such frivolity a decade or so ago.
Des Hasler was axed by Manly on Thursday with one year still remaining on his contract.Credit:Nick Moir
Betfair has a market up right now on the next Premier League manager to feel the full force of the unannounced hatchet between their scapulae (for those playing along, Steven Gerrard is the narrow favourite, nudging out Brendan Rodgers). In relation to the NRL it’s a high crime to theorise, financially, on such matters.
Whether it’s a product of foresight or myopia that you can’t gamble on these things, it’s a sure bet that half a dozen or more NRL coaches will be heading for dole queue during the next year or two.
A small subset of coaches might be considered safe beyond the threshold of untouchability – Craig Bellamy being the archetype – yet for almost all NRL coaches, the notion of actual job security is patently a myth.
The underlying reasons for this instability are altogether simple; rooted in the conditions and vagaries of the head coach employment market. At any one time, there’s only 17 NRL jobs available. It’s utterly fantastical, to reckon there’s anywhere else for a sacked NRL coach to easily go, employment-wise. The skills of an NRL coach aren’t all that transferrable; most head coaches desperately want to do that job, and not a different one.
Sure, maybe a certain few sacked coaches might opt for a year or two’s sabbatical in the Super League, but have you actually tried to eke an existence in Huddersfield, Wigan or Warrington?
Leaving aside the scantness of job opportunities, the second problem with the market is that for every NRL head coach presently in gainful employment in that profession, there’s another half dozen aspirants grafting away somewhere. Salivating, at the mere prospect of a sliver of an opportunity.
Within this constricted labour market replete with volatility, the relative bargaining positions of clubs and coaches are rendered decidedly unequal. For all but a few coaches more “in demand” than there are limited jobs, the bargaining position of a prospective employee is problematic, at least.
Consequently, whether a heralded “new five-year deal” inked by an incoming coach in some whimsical signing ceremony, is in actuality a five-year deal at all, is highly doubtful. Actually, it’s a flat-out mistake to call such deals “five-year deals” at all.
For if a club signs a coach for a fixed term of employment of five years, but the club also has an express contractual right to terminate the contract for team performance reasons, on the giving of say six or 12 months notice, the employment contract isn’t a “five-year contract”. Instead, the proper length of the contract is commensurate with the length of the termination notice period. How many coaches resign of their own free will?
During the past decade or so, I’ve represented a number of high-profile professional sports coaches, across a range of sports. I’ve represented those clients at the start of negotiations where all is shiny and new; I’ve represented those clients in acrimonious disputes, triggered invariably by employers unilaterally determining that their coaching services are no longer required. Here’s a little of what I’ve learned.
First, if the club wants badly enough to employ your client, you can ask for all sorts of wacky bonus clauses. But in doing so, one must pay surgical attention to writing down exactly what the deal is. No wriggle room, or space for later creative interpretation.
Second, coaches definitely need the protection of standard-form contracting which, for professional players, is invariably the byproduct of bitter collective bargaining engaged in by professional codes and players associations.
Third, whereas players associations such as the Rugby League Players Association have real clout in the sports that their clients engage in, collectively-bargained contracting for coaches isn’t a thing.
Fourth, when the acid is applied, clubs will try absolutely any old shenanigans to get rid of a coach when they are not the problem in the first place. It’s all too easy to forcibly move one head coach on against their will, and slather them in a cloak of blame. Quite the distraction when the real problem might be with the collective weakness of character among the players on a club’s roster.
Fifth, even precise contractual terms mean little in circumstances where a club is under the control of people who are idiots or infected with malevolence.
I once acted for a coach with two years left on his contract, where his employer had precisely no contractual right to terminate the contract pre-term. Regardless, the controlling minds of the club decided to jettison the coach. That act instigated a 16-month legal battle that sludged through the court system.
Those proceedings eventually settled literally on the front steps of the court, for 100 cents in the dollar plus costs. Even then, the club had the hubris to request some flexibility to pay in three instalments because it didn’t have the money (apparently). The club’s promises to make good were then encapsulated in a deed, which the club then breached in relation to each instalment, necessitating further legal threats.
I’m only telling you this because the club also forgot to include any kind of confidentiality clause in the settlement agreement they demanded the client sign, so he could get what he had every legal right to receive at a much earlier time.
I’ve no idea of the rights and wrongs of Hasler’s situation at Manly. What I do know, however, is that the systems in place to safeguard coaches’ rights are relatively non-existent.
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