SACKED Wallaby Lote Tuqiri is set to confirm later this week he has signed with English rugby superpower the Leicester Tigers.
The Australian understands Tuqiri has been mulling over two big-money deals in England, but has settled on Leicester -- the richest and most successful English rugby club in the professional era.
Over the past seven years Leicester has taken home the league title on five occasions. The Tigers are dual winners of the European club championship, the Heineken Cup, and are often described as the "Manchester United of English rugby".
Leicester coach Richard Cockerill, a former England hooker, recently played down speculation linking the club with Tuqiri.
However, Leicester is desperate to bolster its backline stocks, with a mounting casualty ward seeing the club sitting in fifth spot after six rounds of the English domestic competition, three wins adrift of fellow powerhouse Saracens.
Another Tigers outfit, Sydney's Wests Tigers, has been the most active club in trying to entice Tuqiri back to the NRL and has put together a competitive offer heavily laced with third-party incentives.
Wests chief executive Stephen Humphreys said yesterday he wasn't aware of Tuqiri signing with Leicester Tigers, but he did know the UK rugby giant was one of several clubs chasing the former Wallabies winger.
"I am aware that they have shown interest and the UK rugby clubs have deep pockets so I'm sure if they've expressed interest they would make an attractive offer to him, but I haven't heard of any outcomes in that regard," Humphreys said.
"If he does make a decision to return to the NRL at some point I would like to think that would be with us and I would be surprised if that wasn't the case."
Any NRL club would struggle to compete with the money that could be thrown at Tuqiri from rugby union.
However, Humphreys said he was happy with the NRL's salary cap and he did not think it needed any tinkering to allow clubs to match it with the money on offer from the rival code.
"We can only operate within our means and we fully support the way the salary cap is managed," Humphreys said.
"I'm not advocating that we would want to do anything to change that necessarily because I think it's working for rugby league generally.
"One of the consequences of that is that we will simply be outbid by others -- at the moment it's rugby union and with Karmichael Hunt it was AFL.
"Other codes will make it difficult for us to compete from time to time, but the benfits of the salary cap outweigh any of those consequences."
Tuqiri has been looking for a new home since being controversially dumped by the Australian Rugby Union in July for an alleged breach of the players' code of conduct.
Following threats of legal action over the termination of his $900,000-a-season deal, which did not expire until 2012, the ARU reportedly settled, with the final deal rumoured to be as much as $2 million.
Yesterday in The Australian, Wallabies coach Robbie Deans admitted the controversy surrounding Tuqiri's sacking adversely affected the team and may have contributed to the disappointing results in the Tri-Nations tournament, with Australia winning just one of six Tests against the powerful New Zealand and South Africa squads.
Tuqiri might not be the only disappointment looming for Wests Tigers with the club still waiting to hear whether Proton Cars will renew its sponsorship next year.
The Tigers had been locked in negotiations with the Malaysian-based car manufacturer for several months but risk having their bid scuttled by a last minute offer from the Sydney Roosters.
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