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http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/nrl-bosses-should-have-known-20100424-tkef.htmlNRL bosses should have known
PHIL GOULD
April 25, 2010
Why didn't the NRL see this earlier? When did David Gallop first know that Melbourne Storm were over the salary cap?
If it's true he didn't discover there was a problem until only recently, why didn't he suspect a problem much sooner than this? Blind Freddy could see the Storm's playing roster was looking very different to many other NRL teams.
With all those representative players on their books (as it turns out the plural form of this word was right on the money - nice one, Gus!), the Melbourne club was still able to find a home for quality players such as Clint Newton, Brett Finch, Luke MacDougall and Todd Lowrie when they became available. If these signings didn't raise the red flag then what about their interest in Willie Mason during last off-season? Surely someone was asking the Storm the big question.
My God - if the Cronulla Sharks, New Zealand Warriors and Canberra Raiders were at the limits of their salary caps, how come the Storm's cap was so flexible?
Someone needed to tap them on the shoulder and tell them it was all becoming a bit too obvious. But no, we let it continue until fixing the rorts now becomes a calamity of nuclear proportions.
Mind you, the precedents had been set. Go back through some of the champion teams since the introduction of salary cap laws and see if you can fit their player lists under the salary cap limits of the day. The public aren't idiots. We know the rules.
That's what is so stupid about all this. Ask the fans if they think all other NRL teams are under the salary cap or if they think others are fudging, even to a small extent. It's like cheating on your tax returns.
But again it raises the question: what good are salary cap laws that cannot detect five years of cheating until an unwitting staff member hands you a second set of books, or a disgruntled ex-employee blows the whistle on the evil deeds of past years?
Remember, for the past five seasons, the NRL's salary cap audit process had given the Melbourne club the big tick to say all spending was within acceptable limits.
This is the very same auditing process that failed to uncover the massive Canterbury Bulldog rorts years earlier.
Our system at the moment virtually forces clubs to cheat if they want to remain competitive, yet cannot detect major cheating until it is too late.
Not for one moment am I questioning the integrity of the auditors. However, in all businesses around the world, the process is only as good as the information given to the auditor.
I'm just saying that for our game, we can't afford a system that produces such tumultuous repercussions and penalties when the truth finally comes to the surface.
The stripping of premierships, $1.6 million fines, loss of major sponsors and disillusionment of fans, the irreparable damage to the reputations and brands of the Melbourne Storm - all could've been prevented had this matter been nipped in the bud years ago and had our salary cap laws been more responsive to the needs of the modern era.
What did we expect them to do?
Years ago the NRL decided to put a team in Melbourne. Their charter was to sell the game of rugby league to a city steeped in the traditions of VFL and now AFL football.
They existed, survived in a city that didn't want them, playing out of a stadium that was from a forgotten era, witnessed by media that would put their results on the same page as junior AFL.
If we delivered this city an average team, with average coaches, achieving average results, the rugby league mission down south wouldn't have reached first base. No Storm player should be minutely tainted in this latest tragedy. They played the game like no other team ever.
They joined the Storm adventure as youngsters, hopefuls, misfits, could-be, would-be, has-been players; but they became a team that you had to beat because they would never give up.
They became champions; not once, not twice, but thrice. They became world club champions on two occasions, if you please, effectively promoting the Melbourne Storm brand to all corners of the sporting globe.
Their record over the past 12 years is better than any other club or franchise in the NRL during that time.
In more recent years, the Melbourne Storm fans fell in love with their latest crop of stars such as Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Cooper Cronk, Greg Inglis, Israel Folau, Ryan Hoffman, Dallas Johnson, Adam Blair, Jeremy Smith, Brett White, Steve Turner, Anthony Quinn, Jeff Lima; all of whom came to the Storm as virtual nobodies and graduated to the status of premiership winners and representative-class footballers.
As the list of team and personal achievements grew, so too did the value of all these players.
What did we expect the club to do? Let it all go?
Did we expect them to let these ridiculous salary cap laws gradually pull the team apart so they could be held back with the average teams in the league?
The Melbourne franchise was pushing for a new stadium. They were really starting to make some inroads in the marketplace. They had to keep them together. The temptation to cheat was more than too great; it was virtually imperative.
In my opinion, the Storm developed these players - they should be entitled to keep them. They just should've been prevented from signing players from other clubs until their wage bill came down or their position on the premiership table warranted bolstering of the ranks.
Let's be honest here. If the Melbourne Storm didn't cheat the salary cap, Greg Inglis would've been lost to rugby or the English Super League. Brett Finch would definitely be in England, and probably with several others as well.
You see, the current salary cap laws frown upon teams as good as the Melbourne Storm. Where our game's leaders should be striving for systems that replicate the strength of the Storm in all rugby league clubs, the salary cap system suggests all teams should look more like the Cronulla Sharks.
Well, I doubt the Cronulla Sharks would ever sell rugby league to the Melbourne public.
We have to let them compete.
David Gallop's insistence that the Melbourne Storm has to play the remainder of this season without the possibility of accruing premiership points shows how little he and his advisers understand the physical and emotional demands of professional football.
It is naivety in the extreme. In fact, I bet none of the people who contributed to this ridiculous decision have ever strapped a boot on in their lives.
To expect these players to commit themselves to the physical stress of the NRL competition with no incentive of advancement is like asking someone to keep banging their head against a brick wall until the pain goes away.
Such a ruling also creates enormous problems.
We now know this Melbourne Storm has been illegally assembled.
The four teams beaten by the Storm so far this season have cause for protest that they were cheated of valuable competition points that could mean the difference between a minor premiership or a finish in the top four or top eight.
If the NRL allows the Storm to keep playing each week with this illegal roster, then any team beaten by the Storm between now and September is entitled to protest they were cheated out of valuable competition points that could make the difference to their season.
We can't say the playing field is level; because under the NRL draw some teams have to play the Storm twice in the premiership rounds and others only once.
So there are only two possible solutions here.
The NRL either sacks the Storm for season 2010 and we declare their matches as a forfeit or a bye. If we do this we may as well fold the Storm immediately and send them packing to Brisbane, because the Storm would be as dead as disco.
Otherwise, we take immediate measures to get the Storm under the salary cap and start them back in the competition on zero premiership points and see how good they are.
If the NRL and News Ltd are serious about having a team in Melbourne for the future then this is the only sensible option.
Take the current Storm roster and the player values the Storm are paying, and tell them to select $4.1 million worth of bodies. That now becomes their player list for the rest of the season and if they get injuries then they'll just have to call on Toyota Cup rookies like all the other teams in the NRL.
The players who miss out should be fully paid immediately and told they can head back to second-tier competitions or find themselves a start with other NRL clubs (if they can fit them in the salary cap, naturally).
The Players' Association would have to support such a move but provided the players in question received their full monetary entitlements, in the best interests of the game, I can't see where they would have a problem.
Gallop keeps telling us what can't be done. At the moment our game is urgent need of some can-do management.
I am getting a bit sick and tired of you endlessly bending over backwards to find a solution for melbourne's problems phil how about we worry about the other 15 teams who didn't cheat first and melbourne can go to bloody hell as far as im concerned they made their bed let them lie in it
