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Sonny Bill compo deal looms
By BRAD WALTER, GLENN JACKSON and BELLINDA KONTOMINAS - SMH | Friday, 15 August 2008
Sonny Bill compo deal looms - New Zealand's source for sport, rugby, cricket & league news on Stuff.co.nz
A compensation deal is set to end the Sonny Bill Williams stand-off saga between his former Canterbury rugby league club in Sydney and his new French rugby union club, Toulon.
Williams, who fled to France, despite having four years to run on his NRL contract with Canterbury, had been due to play in a Toulon trial this morning (NZ time) but did not take the field.
"A financial settlement is going to be found at the beginning of next week," Toulon president
Mourad Boudjellal told news agency AFP this morning while at the Toulon versus Toulouse match at the Mayol stadium.
Williams did not play so as not to "inflame the situation," Boudjellal added in reference to a New South Wales Supreme Court ruling which forbade Williams to play for his club.
In Sydney yesterday, Williams' former Canterbury Bulldogs teammate Hazem El Masri has admitted he felt the club may have been cursed in recent times.
With Williams's shock departure the latest in a string of dramas at the Bulldogs as they edge closer to the wooden spoon, El Masri conceded the club was at its lowest point in his 13-year career.
"The whole year's been tough," El Masri said. "You go through ups and downs, but it probably doesn't get any lower than this.
"It's amazing what things keep popping up. This is just another one. I think someone has just cursed the club over the last five years. I don't think it could get any worse.
"But every club goes through some tough times. You rebuild."
But El Masri refused to be critical of Williams for walking out on the club just one year into a five-year contract, saying: "The bottom line is it's up to him. He said he had his reasons. That's the way things go. He went about it his way … although I would have never done it that way."
El Masri made the comments on a day in which lawyers representing the Bulldogs and the NRL foreshadowed in court that they would begin contempt proceedings against Williams that could result in him facing jail or having his assets seized.
Toulon officials yesterday rejected the claims made in court that legal papers had been served on Williams after his debut last week in a continuation of the hardline stance adapted by the club's owner Mourad Boudjellal.
"That's absolute rubbish," a Toulon source told AAP.
"They haven't handed any papers to him, definitely not. I don't know where they stand legally, but they [the NRL] seem to be making a lot of noise because they can't do much more than that."
Boudjellal went further by suggesting that Williams's shock walk-out and code switch was related to wider problems at the Bulldogs, a club he didn't even know existed six months ago.
"When something like this happens, it's not just the the fault of the club or just the fault of the player - it's normally a bit of both. It's more complicated than that," he said on the club's website.
"If I was the president of the Bulldogs [George Peponis], the first question I would ask myself is why has a player left the club in these conditions?
"If Sonny Bill left us after being disgusted at what's been going on, why? If he's disgusted about what's been going on, perhaps other players are as well.
"Perhaps he [Peponis] should try and sort out his problems.
"Obviously, the easiest thing for everyone to say is that it's [about] money but that means you can avoid asking yourself the hard questions. But it doesn't mean it's as easy as that. There's a lot more to it than money."
Asked about the possibility of Williams being arrested, Boudjellal said: "Obviously the French don't have the same culture as Australia because, I'd suggest, getting arrested for that … there are a lot of far more shocking things in the world which go on that you would get arrested for before that".
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Was the wait worth it - Ya betta baby 
Originally Posted by BLR
