YOU know the story of LeBron James, right?
He’s the American basketball star who switched from the
perennially hapless Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat because, as he said
in the grotesque 75 minute national TV special entitled The Decision:
“I’m going to take my talents to South Beach
and join the Miami Heat. I feel like it’s going to give me the best opportunity
to win and to win for multiple years, and not only just to win in the regular
season or just to win five games in a row… I want to be able to win
championships.”
It was the day loyalty officially died in sport. The day we
were reminded there is no “I” in team but there sure as hell is the word “me”.
Something similar happened in rugby league this week, with
the midweek announcement by rugby league superstar Andrew Fifita that he would
switch from the Sharks to the Bulldogs in 2015.
Players move all the time, we know that. Sometimes for
money, sometimes because they need a new challenge and sometimes, as was the
case with the AFL’s Gary Ablett, for both.
It’s no different in the professional world beyond sport. If
you or I were offered an extra $150,000 to change workplaces, we’d do it
without blinking.
But this Fifita thing had a LeBron whiff to it. It smelled
like a guy thinking not just of his financial future, but his sporting future
too.
The Bulldogs offered Fifita a whopping $850,000 a year to
leave his beachside club and play in Sydney’s
rugby league and geographical heartland. The best the Sharks could table was
said to be in the neighbourhood of $700,000.
For those not well-versed in rugby league salaries, this is
huge - especially because the big bucks are usually reserved for creative
playmakers, not human battering rams like Fifita, who plays in a position with
a much shorter shelf life.
Good luck to 24-year-old Fifita, a former housing commission
kid who can now afford some rather more upmarket housing. He seems a likeable,
genuine, disciplined guy. Plenty of his mates have gone the other way in life.
All the same, Fifita appears to have done a LeBron. Not with
the fanfare and certainly not with the presumptuousness and ego, but the
subtext is the same.
In short, Fifita has made it clear he wants to go somewhere
he can win.
No less a respected rugby league figure than Peter Sterling
said the following in today’s Daily Telegraph:
“The money difference between the two offers apparently
wasn’t that much so I can only assume the Bulldogs offered more stability and
you have to wonder if he felt he had a better chance to win a premiership.”
Much has been made of the fact Fifita broke down when
telling his teammates of his intention to leave. Perhaps a little too much. The
news was broken in a private moment, yet somehow we’ve all been informed just
how incredibly cut up Fifita was in that moment.
If Fifita’s feeling cut up, the Sharks players must be
feeling plain old cut.
Here’s a guy in whom the club invested after his previous
club, the Tigers, effectively lost patience with him. Here’s a guy who rose to
a Blues jersey and a green-and gold jersey while at the Sharks.
And now here’s a guy who no longer wants to play for that
club. That might well be a smart move, given Cronulla has never won a
premiership and – despite boasting two genuine current superstars in Todd
Carney and Paul Gallen in its squad – appearing to lack the depth to seriously
challenge this year.
And that’s not to mention the havoc further ASADA
revelations could wreak on this already drug-tainted club.
Again, this is not to bag Fifita. But if you boil this thing
down, you can easily read it as the big guy saying, ‘Sorry fellas, youse just
aren’t good enough for me anymore’.
Just like Lebron said to the Cavs.
As stated though, you or I would no doubt do the same.
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