ARL Commission chairman John Grant has warned rugby league authorities are set to crack down on NRL player behaviour in the wake of Gold Coast's cocaine dramas and the arrest of two South Sydney players in Arizona.
Following the game's annual general meeting on Friday, Grant indicated that the game's governing body felt deterrents for misbehaving NRL players need to be increased.
""The question now is whether we have to get harder," Grant said.
"And if I had to make a call on the Commission's feelings, knowing them as I do, and the management's feeling, I think you can expect us to get harder, not easier.
"We are a microcosm of society there is no doubt about that.
"Whether they (the players) are comfortable with it or not they are role models. That is the situation.
"It's not okay to say that because everyone else does it you can do it.
"That is not the way the system should work and it is not the way we as individuals should guide our own lives.
"We have got to be above it and our players have got to be above it.
But Grant says the commission has to be careful because each situation has its own individual circumstances.
"No system you set up will work unless you have a set of consequences for people who operate outside the system," he said.
"We have a set of consequences at the moment, we have applied them as consistently as we can given the individuality of every particular situation."
The NRL Integrity Unit is yet to conclude their investigation into the US arrest of ex-South Sydney captain John Sutton and former teammate Luke Burgess, while five Titans players will face court next week charged with drug offences.
Grant said the concern was the damage such incidents were doing to the commercial value of the NRL.
"If you look at it from a commercial point of view, the reputation of this game determines its value and if you look at it from a personal point of view how you behave shapes your own reputation and that is all you are left with," Grant said.
""At the moment we have players facing reputational damage personally and that situation is creating reputational damage for our game.
"It is not where we want to be so I have asked the Commission members to set the standard."
Share
