{"id":815544,"date":"2026-07-22T01:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815544\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T01:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:33:14","slug":"lang-on-league-nrl-must-fix-messy-transfer-system-the-western-weekender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/815544\/","title":{"rendered":"Lang on League: NRL must fix messy transfer system \u2022 The Western Weekender"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While the NRL hierarchy are patting themselves on the back after negotiating a record $5.3 billion dollar broadcast rights deal, they still need to address some important issues in the game which, if not dealt with, will slowly erode the very loyal fanbase it has accumulated over the last 25 years.<\/p>\n

The first issue is the ridiculous rule which allows teams to sign players a full year before they can play for their new club and the other issue is the one which allows players to break any signed contract almost at will.<\/p>\n

The NRL needs to get tougher on enforcing these contracts or imposing tougher penalties if a player wants an early exit.<\/p>\n

In the last two years alone over 50 NRL players have been granted early contract releases.<\/p>\n

That is an obscene amount and one which is growing every year.<\/p>\n

I mean an NRL contract these days is not worth the paper it\u2019s written on.<\/p>\n

A player can sign a three-year deal with a club but it guarantees nothing.<\/p>\n

Now I understand that in sport, as in life, sometimes, individual circumstances may warrant an early release but in my opinion those circumstances have to be quite unique.<\/p>\n

Now, early contract releases are the norm.<\/p>\n

The Zac Lomax situation is a classic case.<\/p>\n

After only completing one year of a four-year deal with the Eels, Lomax decided he wanted out to join Melbourne instead.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, the Eels stood as firm as they could, and Lomax didn\u2019t end up completely getting his way but the situation dragged out for months and it was not a good look for the game.<\/p>\n

A signing window needs to be introduced so that clubs can only negotiate and sign players from other clubs during that three-month period and only for the following year.<\/p>\n

For me that time would be between September 1 to November 30.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s plenty of time for a player to change teams and still get settled into his new club environment.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t imagine it would disrupt the Finals series which takes place in September, if anything it would add to it and give those supporters whose teams aren\u2019t in the Finals something to look forward to.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be realistic, most major signings would be completed early in that period.
While it\u2019s not a perfect solution, at least the player wouldn\u2019t be signing with a new club a full year ahead of time.<\/p>\n

The only exception is that clubs would be allowed to negotiate when re-signing their own players at any time. If they can\u2019t come to an agreement with that player by September 1, the player can then go on the open market.<\/p>\n

And the NRL simply must get tougher on enforcing signed contracts. Otherwise let\u2019s forget written contracts altogether and just shake hands on a deal.<\/p>\n

They used to do that many years ago and it seemed to work fine.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like, looking someone in the eye and saying;<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have my word and it\u2019s stronger than Oak!\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s about as binding as a signed legal contract seems to be these days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Peter Lang is an experienced sports writer, who has been covering rugby league for several decades. He first wrote Lang on League for the Weekender in the 1990s, and worked for Panthers on its famous Panthers Magazine for several years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the NRL hierarchy are patting themselves on the back after negotiating a record $5.3 billion dollar broadcast…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-815544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}