National Rugby League side Wests Tigers "are set to demand financial compensation" to allow Benji Marshall to return to the NRL, according to Walter, Proszenko & Ward of the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. Officials are "advising his manager they intended to enforce a clause in his release agreement prohibiting him from playing for a rival club" before '16. Tigers CEO Grant Mayer said that the joint venture "was not in a position to take Marshall back." Chair Mike Bailey "welcomed the prospect of the star playmaker playing against them because of the interest it would generate" The club would seek "Ben Barba-type" compensation before he could sign elsewhere. A number of NRL and Super League clubs "are believed to have already expressed interest in Marshall." However, the Tigers "may be an obstacle to him returning to the NRL." They would expect any club that wanted to sign him "to come to them for permission to do so." A Wests official said, "We don't want to make it difficult for Benji but we took him at his word and obviously six months on things have changed. It is a Ben Barba-type situation." Brisbane paid Canterbury A$300,000 ($280,000) to release Barba from his contract this season but it is "unlikely the Tigers could expect that sort of money as Marshall had already left and they say they can not accommodate him if he wanted to join them" (SMH, 4/22).
