South Sydney Rabbitohs have been fined $20,000 by the NRL over the incident in Arizona which saw players John Sutton and Luke Burgess arrested, but the pair will not miss any games.
The NRL's chief operating officer Suzanne Young announced the fine at a press conference on Monday.
Sutton and Burgess spent a night behind bars during the team's trip to Arizona for a training camp in November after they were ejected from a bar.
Young revealed a misdemeanour compromise payment had been made to a security guard that allegedly fought with Burgess, and that there is a confidentiality agreement between the players and the security guard.
Young said the club "did not follow the matter to its conclusion" but insisted the disciplinary action taken was sufficient.
Sutton was stripped of the co-captaincy, while Burgess has been released by the club, signing with Manly.
The NRL's integrity unit was criticised for not initially investigating the incident. When details emerged of the arrests in February, the NRL announced it would reopen investigations.
"We are looking at systems and processes that we can improve (within the integrity unit)," Young said.
Shane Richardson, who was South Sydney's chief executive at the time of the incident and is now the NRL's head of game strategy and development, was cleared of any wrongdoing.
"There is no evidence to show Shane Richardson, who was CEO at the time, or any other official was aware of the payment," Young said.
"They should have made further inquiries to whether a payment had been made."
Rabbitohs considering stance on breach notice
The Rabbitohs acknowledged receipt of the NRL's breach notice on Monday, saying they would reserve comment until the club had "determined its position on the matter."
"The club will consider its position on this matter over the next five business days and reserves the right to respond to the breach notice on both the merits of the findings and the serverity of the proposed penalty.
"The club notes that there is no proposed finding by the NRL that the club had actual knowledge that the dismissal of the charges was based on a lawful financial compromise.
"Nor has the NRL sought to vary the sanctions imposed by the club on the players concerned."
Here's a link to the presser
https://www.nrl.com/nrl-fines-south-sydney-$20000/tabid/10959/contentid/726749/default.aspx
This is crap, i cant believe they wont miss a game, the integrity commission does not know what really happened because the security guard was paid off and signed a confidentiality agreement. The club knew nothing about it, so it must have been the players/agents paying him off, and thats cool by them. WTF force the players to disclose what they paid him, cancel the agents licence.
Replies
They should be made to miss all Parra games.
Isn't he in that loser collective the Bra Boys or Bra Wearing Boys or whatever they are?