Tune into our new show Fox League Live on Channel 502 at 5pm every day, and at 3pm on Saturdays.

The NRL has been shut down indefinitely as the growing coronavirus pandemic continues to worsen across the world.

Follow all the developments here.

Round 20

Watch Foxtel in an instant. Catch up and settle in with no installation & no lock-in contract. Sign up to all of Foxtel Now with a 10-day free trial. New customers only.

NRL PROPOSAL COULD LEAVE 2021 PLAYER MARKET IN ‘CHAOS’

The NRL is considering extending all players’ contracts until December 31 in case the 2020 season runs until late into the year, writes David Riccio of The Telegraph.

Players’ contracts usually end on November 1, but the new proposal would mean Tyson Frizell won’t be able to join new club the Knights and Jai Arrow will be stopped from linking up with new team the Rabbitohs until January — extremely close to start of the 2021 season.

Thye NRL wrote to all 16 clubs informing them of its intention to try every measure in a bid to salvage something from the 2020 season.

But some club are already predicting that the move will be problematic.

“It will be a circus – absolute chaos,’’ one NRL club CEO told The Daily Telegraph.

“If the season runs until December, as suggested, we will have players linking with their new club in January — which once they are given time-off to recover from whatever football we play this year, will be less than two months before we start again.

“I foresee mass movement of players as every club works under to adjust their roster and operate within the restraints of a tightened salary cap and in a time frame of high-pressure due to the short amount of time between December 31 and March for the 2021 season.’’

GREENBERG SET TO TAKE SAME PAY CUT AS PLAYERS

NRL boss Todd Greenberg will take the same pay cut as players during the coronavirus with a deal between the two parties in sight.

After a dramatic day where Wests Tigers centre Joey Leilua hit out at the NRL over perceived inequalities in cuts, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

The finer details of the pay cuts were negotiated between the NRL and Rugby League Players Association on Wednesday afternoon, with amendments made to the retirement fund.

Players are expected to be consulted again on Thursday over the agreement, which will see a wage drop of around 75 per cent while no football is played. A deal for the duration of the coronavirus suspension is then expected to be struck either that afternoon or on Friday.

After being paid the first five months of their salary in full since the start of November, it means players will receive around 54 per cent of their entire 2020 contract.

Greenberg’s salary will also be slashed as part of the announcement. NRL executives have so far committed to a 25 per cent pay cut, with head office running on skeleton staff in a bid to slash costs.

But Greenberg’s will drop his at the same rate as the players, in a bid to show the game is unified in its efforts to get through the crisis. “I want to acknowledge the players for their co-operative and collaborative approach to these discussions,” Greenberg said on Wednesday.

“As I have said from the beginning, we are in this together and so in the spirit of our partnership, I have offered to take the same salary deal as the players.

“To me, it is the best and most sincere way of reflecting my appreciation of the way these discussions have been handled. ”

Greenberg’s cut is believed to have been floated well before Leilua’s spray, where the Samoan stared warned the NRL players were becoming increasingly frustrated.

“All I’m reading is the NRL are getting a 25 per cent cut, and all the players are getting a 72 per cent cut,” Leilua told Fox League Live on Wednesday afternoon.

“All they (the players) want is a fair share. Just get the same amount. A 50 per cent difference between the players and the NRL, that is a big difference. “As players we want a fair share. We probably want 50-50. The NRL get a cut and we get the same cut as them.

“Because we’re the product. The players who go on the field every week and entertain the crowds.

“If they don’t want to give us that I don’t think there will be players.” Leilua said he was speaking on behalf of other players who did not want to speak up, and also questioned his union in the spray.

But RLPA director and Manly forward Joel Thompson urged players to keep calm, and insisted the NRL had been extremely transparent in the discussions. NRL expenditure is believed to have been one of the key talking points when representatives from each club spoke to Greenberg and ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys over the weekend.

It had previously been suggested Greenberg could take leave without pay, but V’landys has said that will only be possible when work dries up. Clubs meanwhile have also been forced to stand down hundreds of staff between them.

- AAP

Breaking news: player deal expected to be finalised soon. As part of deal, Todd Greenberg has agreed to take same pay deal as the players. Smart call from the CEO. — Brent Read (@brentread_7) April 1, 2020

PANDEMIC EXPERT WARY OF V’LANDYS RETURN DATE

ARLC chairman Peter V’landys is hellbent on having a 2020 NRL season.

And he’s earmarked July 1 as the date he wants competition to be back up and running, having suspended the season last week.

But the pandemic expert advising the rugby league powerbrokers has warned nobody knows if it will be safe to resume competition by July.

“It takes two to four weeks to see the impact of interventions in epidemics,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“We won’t know until after the first week of April — until which time we will still be seeing the impact of travel bans — how it will progress from there.

“There is likely still community transmission we have not detected because of a restrictive testing policy.

“I think we can also see from the increasingly strict measures being implemented by the government that they, too, view the situation as serious based on the data and the expert advice they are getting and are placing protection of the community as the highest priority.”

TIGERS STAR SLAMS TODD GREENBERG’S 25 PER CENT PAY CUT

Wests Tigers centre Joey Leilua has questioned NRL CEO Todd Greenberg’s 25 per cent pay cut when players have been forced to take a 75 per cent pay cut.

Sharks skipper Wade Graham questioned Greenberg during a phone hook-up with the RLPA on how much of a pay cut the NRL executive team would take and Greenberg said it was 25 per cent.

“I don’t understand, I thought they said we were all in this together,” Leilua told Fox Sports.

“If the players have to agree to a 75 per cent cut, then why not the executives at headquarters as well. I don’t agree with it.”

ISLAND RESORT WANTS TO HOUSE NRL CLUBS

One proposal being put to the NRL is to isolate the entire competition on a remote island off the coast of southern Queensland.

Channel 9 reports the idea is Tangalooma Island Resort would house all 16 clubs, and teams would be “ferried to the mainland” to play games in Brisbane or Gold Coast.

“What better place to put the players than in a totally isolated area - it’s an island, no one gets on, no one gets off,” former player Chris Johns told Channel 9.

League legend Wayne Pearce is heading up a new committee tasked with exploring every option to get the 2020 season started as early as possible.

NRL’S BEST 17: But you can only pick ONE player from each club

CODE WARS: Mark Geyer takes aim at ‘irrelevant’ and ‘stupid’ AFL great

Tangalooma on Moreton Island, Qld. Source: Supplied

Exterior of the Tangalooma Resort, Queensland. Source: Supplied

RAIDERS’ WELCOME BOOST

Canberra’s major sponsor Huawei has announced it will be sticking by the club throughout the coronavirus crisis.

Huawei is the Raiders’ longest serving major sponsor and said on Wednesday the company will continue to fulfil obligations which includes providing ongoing financial support.

The Raiders stood by the telecommunications giant when they were banned from bidding for Australia’s 5G network due to concerns over ties with the Chinese government. It appears that move has literally paid off.

“Huawei Australia knows what it’s like to go through tough times and just as the Canberra Raiders stuck by us during our toughest times we will stick by them now as well,” Huawei Australias director of corporate affairs Jeremy Mitchell said.

“As far as we are concerned there is still plenty of unfinished business to be conducted in this 2020 NRL season and we want to stay on board and be part of that so we can help them as best we can.”

Raiders CEO Don Furner said: “This announcement by Huawei Australia confirming they will stand by their sponsorship of the Canberra Raiders will hopefully be an example to our other sponsors to do what they can to stand by the Raiders at this difficult time.

“Once all of this is over we look forward to hopefully getting back to China and visiting Huawei headquarters to thank the management team there in person for standing by us like this – we will certainly never forget it.”

CORDNER’S EXPANDED ORIGIN BLUEPRINT

NSW skipper Boyd Cordner says the NRL should explore a five or seven-game Origin series.

The NRL has halted competition due to the coronavirus outbreak, with officials desperate to get back playing before September 1. If the NRL fails to get back on track by that date, the Kangaroos captain says that the game could explore and expanded Origin to generate extra revenue.

The NSW Blues celebrate winning the State of Origin series in 2019 Source: News Corp Australia

“You need some sort of rugby league, just to keep the dream alive,” Cordner told the Sydney Morning Herald.

“If September 1 does come around and we haven’t played any footy and we can’t play, why not pick a squad of 30 players for NSW and Queensland, isolate them, then play a five or seven-game Origin series when fans can come and watch.

“The crowd and spectacle is what makes Origin what it is. It’s so patriotic, you’ve never seen a rivalry like it. Without fans it wouldn’t be the same. We’d still play because you want to play Queensland any time, anywhere, but for rugby league moving forward you’d need a crowd to play it.”

V’LANDYS’ SIDES WITH PLAYERS OVER PAY CUTS

ARL Commission chair Peter V’landys has said that players should not be forced into wage cuts next year – if he is able to slash the running costs of League Central.

V’landys told the Courier Mailthat he wanted 2021’s wages to be remain the same, as the players look set to sign on a deal which would see them take a 75 per cent reduction in pay on the proviso the competition didn’t restart in 2020.

It’s a view shared by RLPA boss Clint Newton, who said: “The most important thing is that right now, the broadcast agreement is secured. Next year hasn’t been impacted at the moment by the coronavirus.”

And those sentiments were echoed by V’landys, who said he wanted head office to be the first to bear the brunt of the financial uncertainty.

“I’m not saying the salary cap next year will be cut because I want the players to be last affected,” V’landys said. “My preference is to cut expenses at the ARL and NRL … and that’s what I’ll be doing.”

That could put V’landys on a collision course, with the game’s out-of-contract CEO, Todd Greenberg, who has only agreed to a 25 per cent pay-cut.

He is understood to be on a salary of $1.5 million.

PLAYERS TO AGREE TO HUGE PAY-CUT BUT WANT ANSWERS ON MISSING RETIREMENT MONEY

The Sydney Morning Heraldis reporting that the Rugby League Players Association is set to agree on Wednesday to a 75 per cent pay-cut.

However, the RLPA is also after answers in return from the NRL on when the $10 million taken from the players’ retirement funds will be repaid.

The agreement will see players be paid two month’s worth of pay over seven months.

As per the collective bargaining agreement, the NRL isn’t required to have the $10 million until the end of the broadcast cycle in 2022. However, the RLPA expects the retirement fund – which is at about $20 million at the moment – to be repaid as soon as possible.

The NRL got permission from the RLPA to borrow from the retirement fund in 2017.

As players deal with the imminent pay cuts, they will be able to dip into their entitlements in retirement fund if need be.

The RLPA also wants to have a representative on the competition innovation committee that will be mapping out the 2020 season should it resume.

MORE NRL NEWS

FUTURE UNCERTAIN: Most vulnerable players at every club during NRL shutdown

RLPA 10 DEMANDS OF NRL: This is what Peter V’landys said to each of them

‘I STRUGGLED’: Benji’s advice to Latrell amid fears Souths star could quit NRL