Sonny Bill eyes NRL return
Sonny Bill Williams could be set for a return to the NRL – but only if he becomes the league’s highest paid player.
Williams, 26, played 73 games for Canterbury Bulldogs before a controversial cross-code switch to play rugby union for Toulon.
He has since played Super Rugby for Crusaders and Chiefs, as well as winning 14 caps for New Zealand, winning the 2011 World Cup with the All Blacks.
According to Australian magazine Rugby League Week, Williams wants around $800,000 (approx £529,000) a year to return from rugby union, will only accept a one-season deal and must be free to continue boxing in the off-season.
An un-named coach is reported to have said that Williams’ agent Khoder Nasser “told us the only way Sonny Bill would come back to the NRL was if he got a promise that he would be getting the most money of anyone in the game.
“That was one of a host of conditions he set down. It was about at that stage that we lost interest.”
Williams’ boxing career has taken in five fights, all of which he has won, and he is the current New Zealand Professional Boxing Association Heavyweight Champion.
He is off contract with the New Zealand Rugby Union (NZRU) at the end of the year, and reports last month suggested that he was close to signing a deal for 2013 with Sydney Roosters.
