ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
In an effort to quell poor player behaviour, the National Rugby League is toying with the idea of implementing a ‘China-style’ social credit system for players whereby certain privileges and benefits would be taken away as punishment for missteps and criminal offences.
Speaking to the media this morning in Sydney, our nation’s worst place, NRL CEO Todd Greenberg explained that he’s ‘sick and tired’ of having to deal with poor behavoiur in the competition and he’s ‘looking at options’ to remedy the problems God’s game has in its culture.
“One of our ideas is to introduce a social credit system like they have in China,” he said.
“So for example, players like Cooper Cronk and the rent-a-pom Burgess boys, they don’t have anything to worry about. Well, maybe a bit but comparatively not. But for players like Mitchell Pearse, Dylan Napa and all the other off-season perverts, certain privledges would be take away,”
“Live travelling by air. Say for example, they’d have to get the train to Brisbane or Melbourne for an away game. Go on a P&O across the Tasman to play the Warriors. You know, things like that.”
The system would be updated in real time, with players having an app installed on their phone that tracks who and what they message – as well as their position at all times.
However, a representative from the Rugby League Players Association has lashed out at ‘Chrome dome Todd’, saying that it’s unfair to target just the players in this – that coaching and support staff as well as NRL executives should also be part of this proposed system.
“Do they think we are stupid?” said the official.
“If the walls of every bath house around the country could talk, they’d tell you it’s not just the league players who love a bit of a rub down. It’s top to bottom, the whole culture of this sport is rotten,”
“All we’re saying here at the Rugby League Players Association is that he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”
The first stone was reportedly cast by Cooper Cronk a short time later, who threw a rock through the rear windscreen of Greenberg’s Citroën C4 Cactus.
More to come.
