I'll give you a £20 bet that Williams plays in the French first division next season

It is not the imaginary club, "Tolouse," nor even the real club Toulouse, but rather the real club Toulon, which is to be promoted to 1st division next year.

Once the Canterbury Bulldogs lawyers start their injunctions in France and the UK, the louse SBW has it all to lose.

All the money troubles and wanting to leave started after Mundine convinced him to take on Nasser as manager.

Picky git Toulouse or Toulon stll french

Agree 100%. Would the dogs be interested in Paul Cooke?

Fair play to him
Id have taken the money aswell, not like he cant't come back after his French RU contract is over i mean he will still be young enough

Just wondering what position he will play in RU

It's slavery trying to make him honour his contract.

A contract is a contract you should abide by it !

what happened to Harlequins sueing Henry Fa'afili - didn't he do the same thing and get threatened with court?

did QUins get anywhere?

Why?
Wouldn't you take alot more money on a salary if it was offered to you

he should have signed one then...

Not surprising as they are a pair of dishonest low life scum.

Isn't really comparable to a 'normal' job where the person is an 'employee' as RL players are self-employed.

Basically normally in a place of work you either have a fixed termed contract for set period of time (say if your a consultant/work in IT etc and would normally result in you falling under self employed rules) or you have an open contract and thus then have it written into your contract the notice to be given if you are going to leave, or how long and how much compensation to be given if your contract is terminated etc.

RL/Footballers etc all have a fixed term contract, its up to them to put the clauses in that contract in agreement with the club so that they can get a release, pay compensation etc.

Would you expect a company or individual that offers/provides a service (which in a way rugby players do, as they are self employed) and support them if they turned round and said yeh we signed a contract to do this, but actually we're not going to perform our duties now. You'd sue the hell out of them, if they did that.

No – they're employed by clubs. On fixed term contracts.

So why do some of them i know have accountants and have to fill in their own returns etc?

Because they want to be careful with their money and minimise their tax liability? Because they're in the 40% bracket? Because it's not just the self-employed who file self-assessment forms? And anyone with complicated finances (bonuses, additional income from marketing etc) would be well advised to hire an accountant for tax purposes?

But they are employed by clubs. That's why, eg, clubs can be taken to industrial tribunals by players.

But the main point about their time-limited contracts is that it binds both parties, unless there's a mutual agreement to end it.

When a club gets rid of someone (player or coach) part-way through , for instance, they have to either pay up the remainder of the contract, or at least pay compensation for it, or actually sack someone, showing they've breached their contract through gross misconduct or similar.

Similarly, if a player or coach simply ends their contract part way through, the club is entitled to seek appropriate monetary compensation, whether in the form of a transfer fee or from the player directly

All the NRL (and RFL) can do if SBW ends up in France is simply deregister him as a player if he signs with a French team. If he's silly enough to put all his eggs in one basket - i.e. Union - and risk ending up with nowt down the track, then he's an idiot.

Breach of contract is very serious for sports clubs - comparing their contracts to those offered in 'normal' roles is silly, and using terms like 'slavery' is a nonsense.

SBW signed a 5-year deal that made him very well paid. he did this VOLUNTARILY. No one forced him to sign. He did so because it made him a very well paid young man with a pretty secure futurel. And the Dogs would have planned the next 5 years including having SBW on a very high wage. It's partly the reason (not the only one) why they couldn't keep O'Meley and Mason - in fact IIRC they basically had to choose between Mason and SBW as their 'star' forward, and chose SBW.

It's possible (although maybe unlikely) that the ARU may back the NRL on this as if they are seen to back this sort of raid they could hardly complain if their own players were to do the same (making them ineligible for Wallaby selection, which is about the only stick they have to keep players).

In the end it's a team sport and the guy has really done the dirty on his friends. I don't know about anyone else but I'm not sure I'd be interested in signing someone who would do that sort of thing anyway.

According to nrl.com Toulon are saying that they haven't spoken to him in months (and Willie Mason's backtracking on his statement that he wouldn't switch!).

sonny bill is boxing in brisbane next month . 1st pro fight . mundene's undercard

expect him in SL next season

how ?? he was banned from rugby league

Seems to be doing ok at Toulon now, watched a youtube video of him playing there and the atmosphere was surprisingly very good. Luke Rooney scored a try as well.

Thought it was just the NRL?

I have my own accountant back in Aus and I was employed (mostly, few consultancy things on the side) on a full time basis by my employer.

Yeah just the NRL as far as I know, either way I can't see him coming to SL. He'll stay in union, 50/50 whether he stays in Toulon though.