Collingwood veteran Geva Mentor looks to continue for 17th Australian season as CPA unrest heightens

All 80 Super Netball players are out of contract at season’s end, but no new deals can be negotiated until there is consensus on a new CPA, with the current agreement due to expire at the end of September.

While the Australian Netball Players Association is pushing for a revenue-sharing model, Netball Australia has stated that any form of pay rise is off the table, despite the growing rewards available in sports such as cricket and AFLW.

Mentor turns 39 in September and, health permitting, will contest a sixth World Cup for England. Yet despite that having been widely tipped to be her elite swan song, the goal keeper apparently intends to continue for a 17th Australia domestic season.

Or, if no offer is forthcoming, take her services elsewhere.

“She won’t retire. Not if I can help it,’’ her agent Trent Tavoletti, who acts for 16 SSN players, told CODE Sports. “She’s still playing at her best and (I) probably don’t suspect her to be going anywhere at this stage.

“I don’t have a preference for where she goes. Whatever club is interested in Geva for next year I’ll explore all options, like I do with all my players. There’s plenty of options for Geva. There’s New Zealand. There’s England. I’m confident she’ll play on.

“The problem right now is that every player I have on my books is off-contract and that’s the real problem with the CPA: that every player that’s contracted across Australia is a free agent, so we can’t negotiate, we can’t talk to a club, we can’t do anything.

“Everything is basically left in limbo land, so you have an athlete who needs to earn a living next year who can’t decide where they’re going to earn a living, what state they’re gonna live in. If they’re a mother, they can’t plan what they’re going to do with their children. Nothing.

“There’s whole-life decisions made around this CPA and it’s obviously not being agreed to.’’

Peter Munt, a talent manager whose stable of 24 players internationally includes Diamonds Cara Koenen, Kiera Austin and Ruby Bakewell-Doran, agrees that the uncertainty over the CPA could spill over into the World Cup starting in Cape Town on July 28.

Australia, the world No. 1 and reigning Commonwealth Games gold medallist, is seeking to regain the title it lost to New Zealand four years ago. The 12 chosen in the Diamonds team plus three travelling reserves will enter a staging camp in Melbourne on July 10.

“It’s worse for the players this time round – especially the Diamonds girls,’’ Munt says of what was also a protracted process two years ago.

“If we don’t have a CPA sorted and contracting done for them, they’re going to go into a World Cup training camp without contracts, and are they going to be at full focus for a campaign that’s really, really important for Australian netball? That’s my biggest concern.

“It’s their livelihood. They’re contracted (for SSN) til October, they’re all out of contract with Diamonds at the moment and … I believe that’s being renegotiated as we speak, as well. So we are in a position in general that netballers don’t know if they’ve got a job in five months time, and they’re supposed to be playing World Cup.’’

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Tavoletti points out that many Super Netball imports are also affected. “It’s not only Diamonds,” he said. “All of the players I look after at the moment are internationals and not one of them know where their future lies for next year, so a CPA definitely needs to be organised sooner rather than later.’’

As negotiations continue, the balance for the players is between what may be a CPA rushed to be completed pre-World Cup, or an alternative deal that takes longer to negotiate.

ANPA chief executive Kathryn Harby-Williams told CODE Sports: “In the ideal world, everyone wants it to happen before finals, so we are working through that as quickly as we can. The players just want something that’s fair.’’