Explosive courtroom documents obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald has revealed that the Melbourne Storm asked the NRL to "apply the blow torch" to Parramatta to release Zac Lomax.
A slew of documents released in the Supreme Court revealed that during a phone call between Storm chair Matt Tripp and Eels supremo Matthew Beach on January 13, that the Eels again rejected a $200,000 release fee.
“During the telephone call, Mr Tripp referred to the possibility of punitive steps being taken by the NRL against Parramatta Eels in relation to its salary cap if Parramatta Eels did not agree to the proposal being put forward by the Melbourne Storm,” according to a document the Eels tendered to the court.
“This assertion by the Melbourne Storm was intended or had the tendency to exert pressure on the Parramatta Eels in circumstances where the NRL had never communicated such a stance to the Parramatta Eels.”
It was further revealed that an alleged text from Storm CEO Justin Rodski to NRL CEO Andrew Abdo on January 21 was used to try and have the NRL pressure the Eels into a release.
“Hi Andrew, not getting anywhere at this point, can you apply the blow torch on parramatta [sic] to get this done.
Rodski added: “Lomax staying in the NRL is obviously a win for the game.”
It's what we always suspected. The Storm trying to bully their way into a deal that would favour them. They should be expelled from the competition.
Replies
We now know who runs the game. Abdo denying he said anything. Bullshit he's hiding like the coward he is. Nrl didn't expect parra to fight this. Hopfully heads roll.
If the NRL are implicated in this with the Storm to deceive us with intent to harm or to suffer a loss that's now bigger then before. Thats not just rules based but criminally based. If this is the case I don't think the hearing in March will go ahead. The whole case/ matter gets expanded once again to include the Storm and to include the NRL. 5 days in March will not be anywhere near enough to examine, and cross examine so many people that will be subpoenaed to give evidence on this civil part.
Further there is now a real criminal aspect to this. A serious criminal legal investigation could now be triggered, if there is dishonesty and collusion to defraud the Eels.
Lets take a look:
'There's Fraud, Conspiracy to Defraud, There's Making or Publishing False Statements, Forgery / using false documents to defraud or trick.
Then you have my favourite straight out Blackmail section 249K of the Crimes act where the Storm attempted to Blackmail us in releasing Zac and if we didn't the NrL would apply punitive salary cap sanctions.
Then we have Misconduct in Office (common law) as the NRL are a publicly listed company.
There are a couple more but you get my drift where this may now go. There is some real serious penalties attached to some of these charges, and multiple people could be formally accused and charged if it were to go that way.
Time for some real reporting with the hard questions to be forthcoming. Could you imagine if they held a special commission into the NRL like they did with greyhound racing. Mind boggles.
There's blood in the water, the situation is very serious, not just for us (although we are the catalyst) but for everything from TV rights, corporate responsibilities and the running of the game. The financial obligations of the business.
Before we get too excited we need this to be managed to get results, the reality is that corruption exists in every organisation and yes big business does run it. Parramatta was part of that corruption in the 2012/14 period, a microcosym but still part of it.
We/ the NRL need to clean this is up amd ensure there are no repetitions of this sort of events happening as part of everyday management.....I don't think we have seen anything like the bottom yet but the last thing we need is to see the "game" lying in the bottom of the sewer, where Parramatta was lying in their day.
Presumably most of us fans love the game and whilst our involvement is very tribal we have to be comfortable about its survival rather than the revenge we would like to see.......
We can still have our day in court and win the day, but we have to be careful or more importantly the ARL has to restrict the fallout and collateral damage.....with the real meaning of the word collateral coming home, not just a few "bigends" at the top of the tree.
Nrl is corrupt plain and simple. This case will finally confirm what most fans have been thinking.
Is this a start of a revolution? Will the little man now feel empowered to dictate more fairness?
I remember someone saying the NRL will punish us by having games fixed against us, though fans will click on. We are not dumb, though they believe we are.
I wonder if the Abdo/vlandys blowtorch was still warm from when Gus got it applied to the Tigers re: Galvin
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