The following article by Fox League has the potential to shed some light on salary cap cheating in the NRL
‘Won’t tolerate salary cap cheating’: NRL warning after Smith’s manager makes stunning allegation
Brandon Smith’s manager last week made the stunning allegation that at least one NRL team offered the Roosters star an illegal payment outside the salary cap during negotiations last year.
Now ARLC Chairman Peter V’landys has responded to the “serious allegation” and sent a warning to all 17 clubs in the competition.
It comes after Stan Martin, Smith’s manager, told News Corp last week that one club “offered me a backhander”.
No brown paper bags,” Martin said. “Everything we do must be above board.
“But I had no interest in anything dodgy like that,” he added, also stressing that the Roosters had operated entirely within NRL salary cap rules in successfully signing Smith.
Martin did not name the team, although speaking to The Daily Telegraph, V’landys called on him to substantiate the claims while adding the NRL won’t “tolerate salary cap cheating”, should it be proven.
“If Brandon Smith’s manager has some information, I encourage him to make that information available to the NRL integrity unit,” V’landys said.
“It’s a serious allegation. If he has evidence of some club trying to cheat the system, he should immediately hand it to the integrity unit for them to investigate.
“If he can provide some evidence, we will certainly take some action.
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Many of us have suspected it, and some reporters raise it, but in the main, any discussion in the public domain is quickly hushed up by the NRL, the Club Power Brokers and media types receiving their cash for comments from the very people perpetrating this. Hell even V'landys says he should hand it in to the NRL, but dosnt go far enough to say they are launching an investigation into it, interviewing Smith and his Manager and publicly exposing it and acting on it.
Think about this we as a club have had to pass on Ice Papailii, Reed Mahoney, Marata Nuikore, Ray Stone and thats just last year, wouldnt it be nice to still be able to afford them within our team. The real joke in all of this , is that we are asking the NRL to police itself. We are asking them to shoot themselves in the foot by investigating and public disclosing the rorts. In Business you would be hard pressed to find someone that would willingly expose something about themselves or their business model that would have the effect of destroying their income streams. Thats why we have independant investaigative bodies.
Why do we except that the NRL can police itself, investigate itself, do itself harm by exposing the rorts and distiguishing between the clubs that have and the clubs that have not. Its not fair on all us supporters that follow a team compliant with salary cap rules. We are at a massive disadvantage doing so. We are playing the game with one hand tied behind our backs, whilst some opposition teams flourish with representative players all over the park.
Replies
It was so the bulldogs when they were after smith before they go greedy reedy
The current salary cap set-up is easily circumvented. The NRL have very limited powers of investigation and can only view files that the club makes available to them for audit. The only time the NRL has ever "uncovered" a salary cap breach is when an internal whistleblower has exposed the cheating with evidence. The NRL has never uncovered salary cap cheating on their own.
I know other clubs have done it over the years. Bogus employment at companies not associated with the club is just one example I know of. If your Chairman is a billionaire or one of your owners is a major Hollywood movie star there are limitless methods to pay funds to a player or his family by means which the NRL has absolutely no acess to. The NRL could never uncover it even if they found out about it, they don't have that jurisdiction.
Clubs are also not meant to be involved in 3rd party deals but everyone knows that when player managers negotiate they demand 3rd party deals organised by the club. This happens EVERYWHERE.
The only way to get even close to exposing this is to make salaries and registered 3rd party deals publicly available. Only when we see that Player X knocked back a $1 million offer to re-sign for $500k with no registered TPA's can we at least identify the rort. It may not 100% prevent it but it will shine a spotlight on it.
PS: We all know the Brandon Smith deal is dodgy as. He knocked back 6 other clubs to "sign for less". Puhlease!
The salary cap has been proven pointless. As long as plays can take 'unders' there is no point to having a cap.
I would prefer a points system, but if we are going to continue with this shit show cap system at a minimum we need to have the players cap payments published. Once everyone can see how little roosters players are being paid in the cap it will apply public pressure to at least make it a little fairer.
Yeah, this so called myth that players take unders to play at Easts is garbage. They are getting it made up somewhere.
The claim is it's the business contacts Politis and his connections provides the players. Cronk said it, so has Anasta. If this is true - which is likely is, then that sort of thing needs to be quantified by the NRL and included under the cap, similar to some sort of fringe benefits tax. Whilst this is allowed, certain clubs will always be hamstrung, and certain clubs will always benefit whilst there is a salary cap in place.
The other good one is "they are playing here to win, they don't care about the money". If it was all about winning, then right now they'd all be banging on the front door at the Panthers and begging to play for peanuts.
Precisely
Maybe locality is another important factor .
Yep agreed.
Everyone ne knows there's a shit load of cheating but they look the other way cause it's a glamour club.
dolphins. Isnt mr osullivan there. The best in the business and ex melbourne storm recruitment officer
the one that was banned for a period of time when he was at the roosters?
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