{"id":131123,"date":"2021-09-08T21:31:19","date_gmt":"2021-09-08T21:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=131123"},"modified":"2021-09-19T09:57:54","modified_gmt":"2021-09-19T09:57:54","slug":"penrith-drops-kikau-bombshell-on-eve-of-finals-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=131123","title":{"rendered":"Penrith drops Kikau bombshell on eve of finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

In tough news for Penrith<\/a> fans in the lead up to Saturday night's NRL finals<\/a> clash against South Sydney, the club concedes, it will be "hard" to keep star forward Viliame Kikau<\/a> after next season due to salary cap pressures.<\/p>\n

Kikau's market value has skyrocketed in recent seasons with the 119kg Fijian giant set to receive offers of $900,000 a year.<\/p>\n

Kikau, 26, comes off contract after 2022 and can be approached by rival clubs from November 1.<\/p>\n

Penrith's<\/a> salary has been chewed up by Nathan Cleary, Isaah Yeo, Jarome Luai, Stephen Crichton and James Fisher-Harris, with the club admitting the star would need to take significantly less to stay.<\/p>\n

\"Viliame<\/p>\n

"It will be hard for us to keep him because he is going to command big dollars, especially with the way he is playing at the moment," said Penrith chairman Dave O'Neill told News Corp.<\/p>\n

"We will have to address that after the season. I don't know what sort of money Vili will command but I'm sure there will be clubs that will offer big dollars. It will be hard if the dollars being bandied around are true."<\/p>\n

The Dragons are chasing Kikau hard but have baulked at the huge price tag for the bustling forward and are yet to make formal contact with the star's agent.<\/p>\n

Some in the NRL world claim Kikau is worth $700,000 to $750,000 but some clubs are reportedly willing to give him $900,000 a season, possibly even $1m.<\/p>\n

Clubs with money to spend include Canberra, Sydney Roosters and Wests Tigers have all been linked to Kikau, while Canterbury general manager of football Phil Gould shares a history and strong relationship with Kikau from his days at Penrith.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In tough news for Penrith fans in the lead up to Saturday night's NRL finals clash against South Sydney, the club concedes, it will be […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131123"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131125,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131123\/revisions\/131125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}