The COVID-19 vaccine stance of Melbourne Storm star Nelson Asofa-Solomona is a 'pretty complicated' situation for the club, admits chief executive Justin Rodski.
It's been reported Asofa-Solomona is refusing to take the vaccine currently, with all professional athletes in Victoria needing to be vaccinated to train or play sport in the state.
While Storm haven't officially confirmed Asofa-Solomona's vaccination status, Rodski spoke about the enforcer's situation, admitting there would 'significant complications' if he chose not to get the vaccine before the club returned to training on December 7.
Rodski also revealed he was worried about the outcome if a player continued to refuse the vaccine once the deadline had passed.
"[No vaccine] precludes [Asofa-Solomona] from entering the venue, it precludes anyone for that matter," Rodski said on SEN.
"It doesn’t matter if your staff, a coach, a player, a courier dropping something off, it doesn’t matter.
"We’ve been in contact with all of our players and provided them with all of the health advice that they need.
"From here it’s just going to be a matter of understanding what the final position is and then working through it from there.
"Right now as it stands we don’t have to make that decision but clearly there could be implications for the club if we do have an unvaccinated player because they won’t be able to train, therefore won’t be able to fulfil their contract, which clearly has significant implications on our club and on a player that’s being paid a lot of money.
"We want them to come and do a proper pre-season so that they’re ready to play."
Victoria is the only state who has currently mandated vaccines for athletes, with the NRL currently allowing unvaccinated players from NSW, Queensland and ACT to continue training in a restricted capacity.
Rodski spoke of how the COVID-19 complexities were an unprecedented situation for club's deal with and said Storm were just following the vaccination rules implemented by the Victorian government,
"It’s obviously a pretty complicated issue and there’s no textbook for this," Rodski said.
"We haven’t been through this before as an industry and or even as a society.
"There’s a whole range of complexities that sit around this.
"At this stage, he’s got about two weeks to consider whether or not to get vaccinated. The return date for our senior players is December 7, so there’s still a little bit of time.
"From a personal point of view, there’s a whole range of factors and considerations that players, staff and anyone who is deemed an authorised worker in Victoria needs to consider.
"Because the state government’s health orders have deemed that all authorised workers need to double vaccinated."
Asofa-Solomona, 25, is contracted for two more seasons at the Storm, though his stance will be giving club officials a headache.
It's believed most NRL clubs currently have at least one player who is unwilling to get vaccinated, with the issue expected to be linger for some time yet.
