OUTGOING Melbourne Storm chief executive Mark Evans has called for a player recruitment overhaul and the introduction of an NRL rookie draft.

Evans, who will finish up at Storm the end of the month to return to the UK, believes the current model of clubs signing teenagers from junior carnivals is outdated and unjustifiable.

That includes and extends to the spending of about $20 million per year on players in under-20s and junior representative teams.

Evans said a move towards an AFL-like draft model would eradicate those issues.

“I think it is due a major overhaul — I’m a big fan of introducing a rookie draft,” Evans told the Herald Sun.

“It hasn’t been a national competition very long in sporting terms.

“As a result a lot of the systems that have traditionally evolved in a city-based competition — be it Sydney or Brisbane — have not really adjusted very much.”

Evans said he is also uncomfortable with the longstanding model of clubs spotting and signing players as young as 14.

“I think it is a very good time to look at the way we identify players and I wouldn’t let clubs contract players until they are 18,” Evans said.

“I think we need to think very hard as game about uprooting young people and moving them out of their town.

“I think it very hard to justify.

“You look around the world of sport and it doesn’t really stand up as a best in class, put it that way.”

Change is already on the way with the NRL this week scrapping the controversial rule that allowed Daly Cherry-Evans to this week pull off a stunning backflip and stay with Manly.

The round 13 rule allowed any player that has signed for another club for the next season to go back on their word and re-sign with their current club before a midyear deadline.

That loophole is now dead and Evans, who was formerly CEO of London Harlequins rugby union club, believes more change is on the way.

“In five years’ time, or maybe less, I don’t think there will be an under-20’s,” he said.

“I don’t think we will see a full draft but a rookie draft, and I think we will have free agency beyond the age of say 20.

“Therefore I think the clubs will shift from running teams to player identification and then individual player development, which is a bit more like the AFL here or rugby in Europe.”

“I do find it mildly bizarre that our top athletes between the ages of 18 and 20 are not full-time and find that hard to get my head around.”