For all the brouhaha about this morning's Tele, I think this is story from James Hooper is more damaging.
You can kind of accept people being naive, or even incompetent, but if you get advised that something is amiss, you choose to ignore that advice, then you really don't have a leg to stand on. The big issue has always been did people at the club deliberately mislead the NRL, because I don't think the NRL will give us any leniency if that can be proved. And assuming they have this email they can now provide there was deliberate deception. I"m more concerned that Hooper was confident enough to run with this because you would think that would require an NRL confirmation, and if they're confirming this, we're in a lot of trouble.
Parramatta Eels were warned over dodgy Anthony Watmough NRL deal
THE NRL is aware of documents detailing how the Parramatta Eels board of directors were warned about a potential salary cap problem in relation to a third-party deal for big-name recruit Anthony Watmough.
The documents show how the Eels chief financial officer last year told the club the Watmough deal had the potential to put Parramatta in breach of the salary cap rules.
While there is no suggestion Watmough has done anything wrong, the latest red flag for the Eels will put further pressure on the club’s power brokers.
The issue for the Eels around the Watmough warning is the club’s CFO warned the board of a possible problem last June.
The Eels then signed a statutory declaration last October guaranteeing they had complied with the NRL’s salary cap rules, ignoring the warning from the CFO.
The development comes as the Eels board of directors and club power brokers find themselves embroiled in a fresh salary cap investigation.
With a new election for the club’s board approaching in May, The Daily Telegraph has published explosive allegations about the Eels deliberately devising ways to skirt around the NRL’s strict salary cap rules and regulations.
Champion Eels fullback Jarryd Hayne, who is now playing NFL with the San Francisco 49ers, is also at the centre of the allegations after details emerged he was paid $39,000 after leaving the club.
The Watmough warning will form part of the NRL’s widespread investigation into the way the Eels have been handling the salary cap.
Replies
Give a bunch of students from UNSW all the seats on the board give them credits towards there studies and watch this sh!t disappear forever
No, there is an AGM in April/May. There has been some noises that there may be an attempt at a spill or a no-confidence motion. Considering that is coming up, it would seem somewhat coincidental that all of this information that must have been in the hands of someone, has just leaked out to media now. I predict fireworks.
And the hits keep in coming, sure the person leaking this info is a grub but he wouldn't have anything to leak if the board weren't incompetent morons way out of their depth. Sharp would be out of his depth in a wading pool.......
What most annoys me is that we had the opportunity to really start afresh when the first salary cap incident occured and it was very clear that there were some very questionable contracts being signed which didn't seem to have a lot of oversight. I said at the time when there was a lot of rumours floating around about why the CEO left, that the best thing we could have done was just opened up the books to the NRL - let them come through and put their forensic auditors through the place and swallowed the big yucky pill all in one go. If we'd have done that, I'm sure the NRL would have given us props for being open and then none of this drip-fed series of sagas would have eventuated and we could have started repairing the brand and given the team clean air. It's just stupidity to think that you can hide anything at Parramatta. Too many people with axes to grind and particularly given the board has taken a hard-line approach.
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