THE Newcastle Knights have no intention of terminating Mitchell Pearce's contract, but his days as club captain appear numbered.
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That was the underlying message from Newcastle's general manager of football, Danny Buderus, as the Knights resumed pre-season training on Monday, minus their embattled skipper.
Pearce is dealing with personal issues after the text-message controversy that resulted in his planned wedding to Kristin Scott last week being postponed.
The 31-year-old playmaker was allegedly caught sending compromising texts to a female Knights employee.
Buderus explained that Pearce had already been granted extended leave, to allow for his nuptials and honeymooon, before the drama erupted nine days ago.
He is expected at training later this week, at which one of his first tasks will be to address his teammates.
Buderus revealed that Knights coach Adam O'Brien had been considering a new leadership model since the end of last season, and now there seems little doubt that Pearce will be asked to stand aside.
"For several months we've been addressing and looking at our leadership model within the club," Buderus said on Monday.
"Adam O'Brien is a big believer of strong leadership, group leadership, and we really need to hone down into that and work it out and we're still to really finalise those decisions with which way we're going to go in the leadership.
"We're going to take our time and roll it out. We have got some good candidates for leadership within that group, but that will be for Adam and his team to work out which way the captaincy will go."
Buderus was not prepared to discuss the actual incident, which he described as "private matter between two parties", but he made the club's position quite clear.
"It's not acceptable," Buderus said.
"There's no doubt about that ... perception about culture and what we stand for is highly important. We need the players to adhere to that.
"There are standards in all parts of our game and our organisation, and that behaviour is not acceptable."
Pearce has one season left on his contract at the Knights and Buderus expects both parties to honour the deal.
"I think Mitch will be a player in 2021 for the Newcastle Knights," Buderus said.
He said O'Brien and Newcastle's football staff would "take our time" before announcing their captain, or captains, for 2021.
He was confident the turmoil would not impact on Pearce's teammates.
"I don't think it will," Buderus said.
"They're paid professionals. There will be an address from Mitchell where we can all move on from that."
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