Former Parramatta head of football Daniel Anderson described Anthony Watmough’s contract as a disgrace and said in talks with NRL investigators that the club’s policy of deliberately exceeding the salary cap was a “horrendously stressful situation”.
Anderson, one of five key Eels officials deregistered by the NRL after being found culpable in the club’s salary cap scandal, also revealed during talks with the NRL’s head of integrity Nick Weeks and lead investigator Karyn Murphy that the club would have been “ridiculously” exposed had Jarryd Hayne not left the Eels for the NFL at the end of 2014.
At the time, Anderson understood Hayne was earning about $1.2 million a year from the club, some of that money allegedly through dodgy third-party payments. There is no suggestion Hayne was aware of any wrongdoing.
“So I never looked at his (salary) cap number,” Anderson said. “I just was told, ‘Yeah, he’s on about $1.2 million’ and went, ‘Oh, well, that’s what he is — he’s the best player in the game’.”
Anderson said the club maintained a deliberate policy of exceeding the cap and then working their way back under it by offloading players.
Much of the investigation into the Eels focused on the axing of players, with concerns over termination payments made to Daniel Harrison and Reni Maitua.
Former chief executive Scott Seward alleged Maitua was paid $25,000 cash to leave, in the form of two payments — one for $10,000 and another for $15,000.
He also claimed Harrison was given $20,000 to walk away. Seward claimed that after the payment was made to Harrison, Anderson told him: “I am not doing that ever again. We’re not getting ourselves into this position and doing that ever again.”
In his interview with Weeks and Murphy, Anderson was asked whether he remembered the conversation. “That’s not correct,” he replied. “Who — who’s said — can I ask who said this?”
Told the NRL would not disclose who had informed them of the conversation, Anderson replied: “No, that’s not correct. I have no knowledge of that.”
Seward’s testimony, along with that of former football manager Jason Irvine, played a key role in the findings that led to the club being stripped of 12 premiership points and fined $1 million.
Anderson did acknowledge there were issues with the cap during his time at the Eels.
“So there was a lack of understanding on the cap,” Anderson said. “So the other repercussion was we were recruiting players and the philosophy we wanted to use — the CEO (Seward) was comfortable with this — was to go over the cap.
“You can do that at any stage anyway ... you can be over the cap before an audit. So they were on the philosophy that, ‘just go over by 2,300 (000) and then work your way backwards by selling players. It was a horrendously stressful philosophy.”
Anderson said he and the club’s former financial controller Ed Farish spoke regularly about the salary cap position.
“As I said ... if Jarryd Hayne hadn’t left the club we were exposed salary-cap-wise ridiculously ...” Anderson said.
“It was certainly loose in 2014. The CEO, Scott Seward ... advised that he was going to do the top five contracts. I basically did every other contract other than that.
“He didn’t go through a loop of any consultation in negotiation. The Anthony Watmough contract is a disgrace.
“l’ve got numbers that were, I think, half what we actually paid, so we were always sort of recovering from bad positions. We thought we were in an OK position salary-cap-wise and then we get the contract and we’d be in a hole again ... ”
