Who is to blame?

I have been asked on many occasions since yesterday what my thought's on the Israel Falou defection to AFL means for Rugby League.

As much as I hear the talk about how the player is just accepting a much bigger deal for himself and that the salary cap isn’t working, I can’t help but think alot of this is being driven by the advisors on this one. I normally don’t enter into debate and with Sonny Bill and Gaz I didn’t, these players scuppered overseas to increase their earnings and as a passionate Rugby League follower and professional, I was indifferent in that there leaving was a blow to the game, but not an orchestrated ‘direct’ blow like the Hunt and Falou defections.

Sonny Bill and Mark Gasnier went to make large swags of money on the mediterannean where no one in Australia cared, there loss could only be specualtive in relation to what we didn’t see. Unfortunatley the same cannot be said by the code skipping of Hunt to Gold Coast and Falou to GWS. What makes it even worse is it is being orchestrated by a former Rugby League man in David Riolo. A former Steeler who played for Parramatta and has built a strongt Rugby League agency off the game of Rugby League. This same Rugby League agency that has negotiated millions of Rugby League dollars from Rugby League clubs to fund the development of two athletes into Rugby League players, and that same Rugby League community worked tireleesly to build these players profiles using Rugby League resources to their now iconic status.
As a sign of gratitude and respect to the game of Rugby League they deliver these two players to the AFL so they can specifically win over the minority markets of Western Sydney and the Gold Coast for the AFL in their quest to have total football market domination in Australia.
To rub salt into the wounds, who do you think have been and will continue to be the loudest exponenets of an increased salary cap when the new TV deal comes in? Who will be at the front of the queue complaining that the salary cap hasn’t raised enough? Agents? Corrrect and they are the ones directly involced in the attempted saboutaging of the NRL’s market place in Gold Coast and Sydney

Both plyayers are only doing what they are advised to do, and if you stood to earn a percentage of $3 million dollars from both players over the next 4 years or earn a percentage of $10 million over the same period, what would you be advising?