Decision on new salary cap delays Canberra's attempt to keep Josh Papalii 
CANBERRA is being thwarted in its attempts to extend the contract of boom backrower Josh Papalii because of the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the game's next salary cap.
Raiders chief executive Don Furner revealed yesterday that talks with Papalii had been put on hold more than two months ago because his management team wanted to see how the next media rights deal would affect the cap.
The ARL Commission announced last month it had secured a $1.025 billion deal with the Nine Network and Fox Sports, but clubs are still waiting to find out just how much of that revenue will be passed on to the salary cap and their annual grant.
As it stands, the grant is $4.85 million and the cap $4.3m. Clubs hope the grant will rise to $6m next year and have been told to operate as if the cap will be $5m. That doesn't help the Raiders, who want to extend Papalii's deal until the end of 2015.
"The last discussion I had with him and his manager is that they were looking at an upgrade and extension but they just wanted to see where the salary cap was going to be," Furner said.
"I said to them, 'That could take months' and it has taken months. We're still a month at least from knowing what the salary cap is going to be. We need to know what we've got to spend and his management quite rightly is holding off to see what we can spend because he's waiting to see what the rise will go to."
Papalii, 20, is one of the hottest properties in the game and is being courted by both New Zealand and Queensland for representative honours. If he is selected to play for the Kiwis for next month's Test match in Townsville, his market value will only increase.
He made headlines in last Sunday's qualifying final against Cronulla after being asked by Raiders coach David Furner to target NSW State of Origin and Sharks captain Paul Gallen. The tactics clearly worked, with the Raiders winning the game and Papalii getting the better of Gallen.
South Sydney players are bracing themselves for Papalii _ who earlier this week was compared with former Kiwi enforcer Ruben Wiki _ to perform a similar role in tonight's sudden-death semi-final at Allianz Stadium, with Dave Taylor his expected target.
Furner is part of a sub-committee charged with working on the game's next collective bargaining agreement, which will incorporate the cap. The current CBA expires on October 31, leaving officials less than two months to have something in place.
The Canberra chief executive refused to criticise the commission over the time it is taking to determine the crunch issues confronting the game, including the cap, grant and season draw, but a number of club bosses are frustrated.
Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/nrl/decision-on-new-salary-cap-delays-canberras-attempt-to-keep-josh-papalii/story-fnca0von-1226474505648
Topic: Papalii Contract Talks Stalled Due to Salary Cap Uncertainty
