The Raiders have reportedly been left fuming over Jack Wighton’s new deal with rival club the Rabbitohs, with Canberra said to have lodged a formal complaint with the NRL over it.
That is according to News Corp, with a report on Tuesday evening revealing that Raiders bosses had made the complaint to NRL chief executive Andrew Abdo.
Abdo confirmed to News Corp that Wighton’s deal will be looked at.
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“The salary cap auditor will review the contract and test market value,” he said.
“We haven’t received anything yet (from South Sydney).”
The NRL is yet to receive the contract for Wighton and it will still need to be approved by the league before any official announcement is made, as would be the case with any other deal.
News Corp reports that Canberra’s concern with Wighton’s South Sydney deal is that it is “laced with third-party arrangements”.
“Canberra have also taken the unprecedented step of disclosing precise details of their upgraded four-year offer to the NRL to ensure Souths’ deal is of comparable value,” the report adds.
For context, the Raiders reportedly offered Wighton a contract worth $4.4 million over four years but the five-eighth will instead give up close to $1 million to chase a title with South Sydney.
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Speaking on Triple M’s Saturday Scrum last weekend, The Daily Telegraph’s David Riccio offered some insight into how the Rabbitohs have money to go after Wighton.
“A lot of discussion around South Sydney’s salary cap and just a bit of insight I can give you is that they didn’t sign a player from outside the club this season,” Riccio said.
“They have gone with the same squad, they also never replaced Dane Gagai who was on significant money in that marquee centre spot.
“They’ve basically been going with the likes of Isaiah Tass, Izack Thompson, Lachlan Ilias, they are not $500k players so there is money there.
“The other key ingredient is that through all that CBA negotiating and the guessing game of what the salary cap would be over the past eight to ten months.
“Well South Sydney undercut themselves, they went lower than the predicted figure so they actually have surplus cash because they set the bar much lower than what it ended up to be.
“That’s where they can find some extra cash to go after a marquee like Jack Wighton.”
