Canberra Raiders boss Don Furner calls for consideration of brief NRL careers in CBA talks

The players have knocked back the ARL commission's massive $1.32 billion pay deal - the biggest in the NRL's history.

That's a 35 per cent increase from the previous five-year deal of $980 million.

It would see the average NRL salary jump from $325,000 to $400,000 - a 23 per cent increase - and well above the average wage in Australia.

It's led to claims the players and their union, the Rugby League Players Association, were being greedy in the CBA discussions.

Those discussions have dragged on to such an extent there's still no salary cap for next season - despite the financial year officially starting on November 1.

Furner's been involved in the negotiations as one of the NRL clubs' representatives.

He felt the average length of players' careers should be taken into account before jumping to a conclusion.

Furner said the average playing career in the NRL was just four years - far less than the working careers of the general public.

"It's a long, drawn out process. It sets the scene for the next five years so we've got to make sure it's right," he said.

"The one thing that people do miss is the average NRL life span is four years of work - not 40 years like you have.

"You can compare someone's contract of $300,000 per year versus the average of $80,000, but that person gets that 300 on average for four years.

"Very, very few are earning that for 10 years."

There's still no salary cap for the 2023 season, despite most clubs and players having already sorted most of their playing rosters and contracts for next year.

That's meant the club bosses have had to come up with their own idea of what the cap could be and work towards that.

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It meant when it does get finalised some clubs could find themselves already over the cap - potentially leading to a fire sale to try and get back under it.

Furner felt it was more likely the Green Machine would have extra room in their salary cap - and would be able to take advantage of that as players become available.

While they've nominally got all of their 30 NRL roster spots filled, they were able to reclassify some contracts to open up a couple of spots if needed.

"That's what we're waiting to see. There'll be some [player movement due to the salary cap], there always is anyway let alone the year of a CBA," Furner said.

Furner said that uncertainty did make it hard to plan, but every other club was in the same boat.

Perhaps Furner did have a slight edge though as one of the three club representatives involved in negotiations.

"The only thing is everybody is in the same boat. It's not easy not having our budget - because our grant money from the NRL is our biggest cheque we get," he said.

"We don't know what that amount is, we don't know what the salary cap is.

"We have a fair idea, but we don't know it down to the [exact amount].

"We started our financial year 10 days ago so not knowing that gives us a bit of uncertainty, but every club is in the same boat."

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