The New Zealand Warriors are facing life without Roger Tuivasa-Sheck all over again, with the superstar Kiwi’s eyes turned by the Saudi-backed rebel Rugby 360 competition and its $1 million-a-season carrot.
Tuivasa-Sheck would be the first NRL breakaway to join the Saudi Arabian competition, which has already come under fire with “sportwashing” allegations. It doesn’t have a start date yet either.
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For “RTS,” the approach (and his likely acceptance) comes down to the windfall. Right now, he’s earning around $550,000 a season with the Warriors, but that yearly pay packet could more than double if he moves to the rebel comp.
Considering he’s already 32 this year, a pile of Saudi cash to see out his career would be tempting.
The “R360” competition certainly has deep Saudi coffers behind it, too; its chief financier is reportedly the same Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund that founded the LIV Golf competition, the Saudi football league — where Cristiano Ronaldo has been playing for the past few seasons — and forked out boatloads of cash to win the 2034 FIFA World Cup hosting rights.
The Warriors aren’t happy about the prospect, with CEO Cameron George raising the issue at an NRL CEO’s conference last week. “I needed to alert everyone so that they are across this and what it could bring in the next few years,” he told the Herald.
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New Zealand’s only rugby league team isn’t the only outfit threatened by the cashed-up rebel comp either: The Sporting Base has heard Melbourne Storm duo Ryan Papenhuyzen and Nelson Asofa-Solomona are on the R360 hit list for early signings. Any new-comp deals that go through would be formalised in September this year at the very earliest.
Kalyn Ponga, who just had a panic meeting with the Knights, may be another rip target.
The R360 league would go hard for NRL and Super Rugby stars, with US$2M the upper reach of new deals.
Once the competition has built up a few big names to bring in viewers, there are talks that it will run a joint format that would see Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France, England, South America, Asia, and South Africa all compete.
The idea, Michael Chammas has been reporting for the SMH, is that the league would start with eight teams before eventually expanding out to 12 teams. This expansion would see the best-performing countries add additional squads.
