Eels open door for disgraced Sharks boss

[muznik]

I picked up on that too Belly.

And see this IMHO is why Zappia should not be CEO of anything in the near future. It appears to be "open season" on him and anything he is associated with.

A simple, generous thing such as a dying fan wishing to donate to the team he loves has now become a full on public scandal (rightly or wrongly).

FFS Parra has already been dragged into it thru Roy Spagnolo and has nothing to do with the Eels !

 

[spiderdan]

if i were 27 y.o. clint elford i would be suing those hack journos for as much as i could and donating that money as well to the sharks or a real charity.

i guess this is one of the reasons why so many people (on both sides of the fence)were against the former 3p group using massoud in their power struggle. i think he causes more damage than good with his writing.

 

[blacktip-reefy]

Yes, what she did is still not illegal.



I'm not so sure... from the clause the act that Fish posted,

(b) a principal party to the conversation consents to the listening device being so used and the recording of the conversation:
(i) is reasonably necessary for the protection of the lawful interests of that principal party, or
(ii) is not made for the purpose of communicating or publishing the conversation, or a report of the conversation, to persons who are not parties to the conversation.

The key word there is "or"... she was a principal party who felt recording was necessary for protection of her lawful interests. For your claim that she has acted illegally re the second bit, the word you would need instead of "or" is "and".

Read the precedent case you clown. I even posted it for you. The person in that case was not allowed to enter the tapes because they were deemed to be obtained illegally by the court. The person in that instance has not played those tapes to anybody else other than her husband. Not CH7, not the radio not the papers, nobody. & yet they were still illegal in the courts eyes.
This C.O.A.T has not taken the tapes to the police, ICAC, or anybody that protects her lawful interest. She has sold for profit to a media organisation. It is the pinup case of illegal.

 

[Belly in Brisvegas]

if i were 27 y.o. clint elford i would be suing those hack journos for as much as i could and donating that money as well to the sharks or a real charity.

Exactly what i thought mate

 

[Eels Dude]

This Zappia bloke is dodgy as. If the club even considers hiring this idiot I'll protest and the rest of you guys should too. He may be a smart businessman, but he's a poor image for the club and seems extremely selfish as opposed to working for the club's best interested. Having just seen on Nine News about his dealing with Roy Spagnolo that's not a good thing either. There are two many crosses against his name in my opinion.

 

[El Diablo]

watching 9 news and them showing the accounts and receipts makes it look like yet another channel 7 fizzer

i think Zappia might end up making more money out of suing 7 than anything else he does in the future

 

[blacktip-reefy]

watching 9 news and them showing the accounts and receipts makes it look like yet another channel 7 fizzer

i think Zappia might end up making more money out of suing 7 than anything else he does in the future

Lets hope so. He needs to let his dirty laundry out now though, then stand up & fight. Ch7 have done their work on this though, you just have to wonder where do they go from here. More or to the courts?

 

[bartman]

Read the precedent case you clown. I even posted it for you. The person in that case was not allowed to enter the tapes because they were deemed to be obtained illegally by the court.

Waht's that case got to do with this situation though? There is no case - she did not make a police complaint about Zaps behaviour, so she is not trying to enter the tapes to a court to prove anything with them!

It is the pinup case of illegal.

It is not illegal in the slightest, as pointed out by the quoted clauses of the law you mentioned above. Nine months passed before the tapes have surfaced in the media, there are reports she refused media approaches at the time, so it's a long bow to argue the purpose of the recording was for anyone else to listen.

Good luck to Zappia if he wastes his time and money trying to make a court case that anyone has acted illegally... at least it will take away his chance to do a job application at our joint.

 

[El Diablo]

http://www.leaguehq.com.au/news/lhq...ing-secret-fund/2009/06/15/1244917986113.html

Zappia called to account for secret fund set up by Eels chief's firm

Brad Walter and Jacquelin Magnay | June 16, 2009

MEMBERS of the Sharks coaching staff, including head coach Ricky Stuart, are expected to be quizzed by club directors about whether they knew of a secret fund the club's disgraced former chief executive Tony Zappia kept hidden from the board.

The emergence of the fund, called the Forever Sharks Foundation and which contained $30,000 donated by a dying fan, has prompted the NRL to launch a salary cap investigation, while Zappia will today front the Cronulla board to explain why the cash-strapped club had not been made aware of such an important source of funding.

If they do not receive a satisfactory explanation it is believed the board will consider calling in police to investigate, and the financial settlement agreed with Zappia when he resigned last Thursday might be in jeopardy.

Cronulla directors are also furious that new Parramatta Leagues Club chairman Roy Spagnolo appears to know more about the finances of their club than they do after his accounting company set up the fund.

But Zappia last night insisted he had not done anything untoward and said $10,000 of the foundation money had been used to pay for training camps for the team at Kiama and to buy a computer for assistant coach Shane Flanagan.

The remaining $20,000 had been invested, he said. However, his comments raise questions about whether Stuart or any of the Sharks coaching staff knew that the money was being kept hidden from directors.

The board has ordered an immediate investigation to discover if any staff members were aware of the foundation.

The investigator is also looking for receipts, withdrawals, invoices or payments for which any of the foundation money might have been used.

Zappia last night showed Channel Nine receipts that he claimed to be evidence of spending money on the football team.

One receipt was for $4140 dated September last year, another was for $2460 and a third for $1598, for a computer for Flanagan.

The first receipt, shown on Channel Nine, was for two people spending three nights at a Kiama resort from September 16 last year, , when the club was contesting the finals. Channel Nine reported that that receipt was for a team camp, and a second receipt was for a team dinner at the same resort.

However, it is understood Zappia told the Nine reporter that the receipts, which had "paid" handwritten across the bottom, related to a team camp in May this year.

"I've got all the records, all the emails exchanged, I have all the documents in regards to where the money is," Zappia said.

Spagnolo, meanwhile, told the Herald that he was not personally involved in the foundation, whose directors are three employees of his company, even though he had been present yesterday when Zappia collected the documents to present to the Cronulla board today.

NRL chief executive David Gallop said he was expecting a report from the Sharks after their meeting with Zappia.

"The first step is for the Sharks board to understand what is going on," Gallop said last night. "We would expect the Sharks board to let us know what they find out tomorrow."

Meanwhile, former Test forward Reni Maitua said he hoped to have saved the Sharks further adverse publicity after accepting a two-year ban for returning a positive drug test.

But Maitua said he never knowingly took the banned substance clenbuterol, a stimulant used to boost muscle mass, for which he tested positive on May 1.

"Until I received the results of the testing, I had not ever heard of clenbuterol," the 27-year-old said in a statement issued by the NRL.

"I am still not aware what it does or what it is claimed to do. I have no idea how this substance came to appear in my sample but I accept that it has. I hope that by the approach I have adopted in not contesting this finding, I have saved my family, the Sharks, their fans and the NRL from further adverse publicity and suffering."

Maitua has been provisionally suspended since May 20, and will be free to resume playing on May 19, 2011, when he will be nearly 29 years of age.

 

[fish eel]

The donor wanted to remain anonymous, right?

So why did the board have to be kept in the dark about the fund?

Surely they could be informed without the donors name being released?

 

[El Diablo]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/nrl/story/0,27074,25642785-14823,00.html

Roy Spagnolo distances himself from Sharks drama

By Josh Massoud | June 16, 2009 12:00am

PARRAMATTA chairman Roy Spagnolo has distanced himself from the fresh controversy at Cronulla, despite the fact his accountancy firm set up the contentious Beyond Sharks Foundation.

Three employees of Roy Spagnolo and Associates are also directors of the foundation, which has so far accepted $20,000 from Sharks benefactor Clint Elford.

However Spagnolo last night said that he had no personal interest in the foundation, aside from providing long-term client and former Cronulla boss Tony Zappia with the legal means to create the foundation.

"When you set up a company, it's natural that the accountants who are responsible for setting it up become the initial directors until funds are received," Spagnolo said.

"It is only in the last couple of months that the company has received any money, to my knowledge.

"We'd now be very happy for Cronulla to transfer it to another accountancy firm or install directors of their choice."

 

[El Diablo]

The donor wanted to remain anonymous, right?

So why did the board have to be kept in the dark about the fund?

Surely they could be informed without the donors name being released?

and why did Stuart know and not the board :?

 

[bartman]

And hopefully you can transfer any support you had for Zappia as a future Eels CEO elsewhere at the same time, Roy!

 

[El Diablo]

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/nrl/story/0,27074,25642801-14823,00.html

How Tony Zappia became executor of $13.8m

By Josh Massoud | June 16, 2009 12:00am

THE timing could not have been more poignant. Just days after throwing a punch that would eventually unravel his career, Tony Zappia received an email from a lawyer named Leanne Saunders on August 12 last year.

She claimed to represent Cronulla fanatic Clint Elford, who was terminally ill and desperate to see his beloved Sharks survive after his passing.

The 27-year-old claimed that his death would trigger a massive $13.8 million life insurance payout - and wanted the Sharks to receive every last cent.

From his home in Goulburn, Elford quickly began to correspond with Zappia on a regular basis.

The reclusive Elford, however, was paranoid about his identity.

He didn't want Zappia to reveal a thing about what was being arranged. Within two weeks of being contacted, Zappia had registered the Beyond Sharks Foundation to receive Elford's donations - in life and after it. The first monies, however, did not arrive until February this year - in the form of six $5000 cheques.

Four were made out to the foundation, while the remaining two were payable to Zappia and sent to his personal address.

Zappia yesterday explained this quirk - and his failure to reveal anything to Cronulla's board - as a means of protecting Elford's identity, a constant concern in correspondence. Shortly after the Foundation was established, Elford also made Zappia the sole executor of his estate.

He claimed to have seven life insurance policies, two of which (Real Insurance and ING) were sighted by The Daily Telegraph and valued alone at $6 million. Elford said six of his policies had been directed to the Foundation, whose funds Zappia was also granted discretion to spend. Elford said the $30,000 forwarded to Zappia and the Foundation in February came from a recent insurance payout, triggered when specialists declared he had less than 18 months to live because of a deadly neurological disorder known as Shy-Dragers Syndrome.

"I didn't think it was anything unusual to donate that money - in the past year I've donated $140,000 to charity," said Elford. Upset that Cronulla's board was left in the dark, Elford is still determined to pass on his life insurance to the Sharks.

 

[bartman]

Well Josh is naming the fan again today, after yesterday's article was changed online to remove the surname. Guess he's got permission now after all, after the whole privacy horse has bolted?

 

[Gronk]

I think the Sticky & Zappia are lucky that this was brought into the open now rather than after this poor fella died. Cheques made payable to Zappia personally and sent to his home address ? A trust fund kept secret from the Board ? Shenanigans a plenty me thinks.

 

[strider]

i'm not saying there's any shenanigans - but who at the sharks other than zappia knows of this fund? - its been kept a big secret right? .... now that he's gone, who was gonna make the decisions about using it for the sharks? :lol:

 

[fish eel]

Yeah, if Zappia spent every cent properly, it's still been done a poor way, I'm sure there would have been more transparent ways to do it.

 

[Craig Johnston]

even if zappia is innocent, he was f**king naive, no ceo (not one i would hope at our club) would put themselves in such a no win situation in the first place.

 

[Gronk]

The charity cheque it took Cronulla 11 months to write

Jacquelin Magnay | June 16, 2009

A KEY statement of the Charitable Fundraising Act is "to prevent deception of members of the public who desire to support worthy causes". Does Cronulla measure up to this? Does the forwarding of monies to a charity 11 months after donations were made, and just days after the Herald submitted written questions about the fund-raising, constitute an abuse of that trust?
When thousands of Cronulla supporters attended the Saturday night game against Manly on July 12 last year at Shark Park, there were many young fans keen to help the club's fund-raising effort. There were a couple of dogs on show, and fans were asked to make gold coin donations. The plastic puppies on sale were a hit with the kids, and nearly 1000 of them sold for between $2 and $5.
The fund-raising appeared legitimate. There were Guide Dogs NSW staff in attendance, the club had promoted the day and the money raised was to go to the organisation. People who put their coins in the box would have expected that money to go to Guide Dogs NSW. In all, $4667.31 was donated by fans. It was a feelgood gesture that resonated well with young children.
Weeks earlier, the club had announced a high-profile tie-in with Guide Dogs NSW. It would be a platinum supporter of the Pups with Promise program and, as part of that program, a puppy called Digger was to be raised by one of the Sharks players, Brett Kearney.
The Sharks were underwriting the sponsorship from $28,600 ($26,000 plus GST) they had received from a club sponsor, JCB. The JCB money, paid in quarterly instalments over one year, was to be diverted to the Guide Dogs Pup with Promise program. The cost of the pup was $26,000, and the club could make a little bit of extra money because the instalments to Guide Dogs NSW, while paid quarterly, were to be paid over two years.
This is where it gets murky. After July 12 last year, there were several discussions among Sharks staff about where the money raised from the sale of the plastic puppies and the gold coin donations was to go.
The then chief executive Tony Zappia initially told the community relations officer, Jenny Hall, the money was to offset her salary and enable her to go out into the community and attract more sponsorships that reflected well on the club. Hall vehemently objected to that suggestion. She believed the money was specifically for the Guide Dogs NSW and should immediately, and in full, be passed on to it. It is understood another discussion then centred on the costs of servicing the JCB sponsorship, and staff were told that the donated money was to help pay for the cost of banners displaying the JCB signage and the framing of a team jersey.

On May 22 this year, the Herald submitted written questions to the Sharks chairman Barry Pierce and to Zappia concerning the proceeds of the fund-raising and asked to see the accounts. By law, such accounts are to be made available within 30 days. The response from Zappia was that they would be included in the end-of-year statements.
Zappia would not detail how much was raised by the collection on July 12, and would say only: "The Sharks had a commitment to raise funds in excess of $27,000 to cover costs involved in the training of the guide dog, which it did through a combination of sponsorship and donations. The audited accounts will be contained in financial year statements, which have been audited and closed on 31 October."
Behind the scenes, Guide Dogs NSW was also concerned. Its staff had made three phone calls to the Sharks offices in connection with the fund-raising money. The payments for Digger are up to date, with the club having paid $9750 of the $26,000. Earlier this month - a week after the Herald's inquiries - a cheque suddenly arrived at Guide Dogs NSW headquarters for the amount of $4667.31. For all of those people who had dug deep into pockets and handbags, they will be relieved to know the money was finally banked with the organisation on June 6.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/lhqnews/...1244917986101.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1