There were fears Australian stars could have pulled out of the World Cup due to the stalled CBA. Picture; Oli Scarff/AFP Source: AFP “It’s really frustrating when we’re acting in good faith but it’s all falling on deaf ears. That’s why all things are on the table.
“We’re still training and playing, but you would have seen that we’ve pulled back on NRL media commitments, and there’s a whole variety of action that we could take. Hopefully it doesn’t get to that, but it’s been so frustrating.”
The NRL announced huge increases to the 2023 salary cap in a move that was supposed to smooth things out with the players, but instead it backfired.
Welch was disappointed to not see Andrew Abdo at some of the big meetings. Picture; Mark Metcalfe/Getty Images Source: Getty Images “I know why they’re doing it,” said Welch, who is an RLPA Director.
“You look at V’Landys and Abdo and they’re trying to keep the people who can throw them out of a job happy.
“Our claims are completely reasonable, and the biggest sticking points are non-financial. This big hold up isn’t because of the salary cap being far off, it’s a number of things the NRL isn’t even willing to talk to us about.
“I don’t know what they’ve been doing throughout the year.
“We’d go into negotiations and Andrew Abdo wasn’t present. I like to think that this would be a pretty high priority for the NRL to work with the players on.
“They bring an external consultant like Hugh Marks along, and if we’re talking about cutting back costs, I’d like to know how much they pay him. I thought he was really reasonable, but he didn’t have any power in those discussions to make calls, so it just dragged on and didn’t go anywhere.
“Let’s get back to the table, get a CBA done that benefits both parties and then we can grow our great game across Australia.”
NRLW stars don’t know when the new season starts and can’t sign contracts. Picture; Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Source: Getty Images Welch bemoaned how much better the relationship was in Melbourne between the AFL and the AFLPA, and said the stalled negotiations were hurting the game’s most vulnerable people.
“The big thing is the women,” he said.
“They can’t sign contracts, they’re vulnerable, they don’t know season dates or lengths, and it’s so hard on them because it’s still part-time work. It’s not good enough for the NRL to take so long.
“This isn’t about money.
“The RLPA is going to release a document in the next few days that will state every criteria of the offer that came through on Friday is going backwards from what was established from 2018-22.”
The players are so fed up that more than 50 of them held a meeting on Monday night to discuss their next moves.
“I think the NRL are banking on breaking up the solidarity of the players. They’re trying to bully us into submission,” Welch said.
“They released a salary cap and gave us 48 hours before Christmas to accept it and then published it anyway to try to break our unity. If anything, it’s strengthened it.
“There were some passionate blokes on that call on Monday who are ready to take action. We don’t want to get to this, but the reality is the NRL aren’t listening to us, so we’ll take action going forward.”
Crichton to leave Panthers after 2023 | 00:43
Raiders coach Ricky Stuart provided a different perspective while speaking on SEN 1170 Sportsday on Tuesday, defending V’landys and Abdo from criticism.
“Hopefully we can get to some decision quickly, also there’s a lot of media (coverage) out there at the moment because there’s nothing else to really talk about, so this is going cop a fair bit over the next couple of days,” Stuart said.
“I’ve got all the faith in the world in Peter and Andrew running the game, I really do, if it wasn’t for Peter I don’t know where we’d be.
“Us (the NRL) and racing was the only sport in the world that continued during that period of COVID, and we were going broke, I don’t know how they’ve done it.
“Now they’re paying out millions and millions of dollars, we’re flush when I say flush, we are a lot healthier than where we were before COVID. We can’t forget that, but I understand players have their gripes and rights, and they’ll fight for that.”
