How do we stop it from happening again?

[JoeD]

Melbourne cheated the cap, they weren't the first and probably won't be the last but I have a simple idea how to make cheating the cap much harder in the furture. Make the players and their managers responsible.

Player A signs with a club for $250k/year for 3 years. The club sends a copy of the contract to the NRL. The NRL sends a copy back to player A. Now if the contracts are different or if the player gets paid more than their contract, they are complicit in the rort and they can be punished. Ignorance is no excuse, much like drug cheating.

Its a simple plan and it would mean players (and managers) could be individually punished via bans for cheating, which IMO would substantially reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

 

[Jose93]

Make the players sign all their contracts in front of David Gallop and the Salary Cap Audit team. We'll have it on record then, won't we?

 

[stormbati]

There is no way to keep track of the salary cap.
What if a player goes to a certain pokie machine and suddenly wins the jackpot? There is no way in hell because as long as there are rules there is always someone looking for a way around it or hide breaking them.

 

[The EELiminator]

the ultimate deterrent is to put all clubs on notice that if you are caught your club will be deregistered and banned from the nrl its very hard to prove the best way to stop it happening again is to make them too scared of the consequences to try it

 

[BuffaloRules]

All remuneration to be cash only.

No cars, no boats, no houses,apartments,Harvey Norman vouchers, holidays or hookers.

If you are caught accepting extras then no excuses.

 

[oldmancraigy]

Player A signs with a club for $250k/year for 3 years. The club sends a copy of the contract to the NRL. The NRL sends a copy back to player A. Now if the contracts are different or if the player gets paid more than their contract, they are complicit in the rort and they can be punished. Ignorance is no excuse, much like drug cheating.

Pay attention: the Storm players signed 2 contracts - 1 which got sent to the NRL; 1 which got kept in the 'secret files'. The one that got sent to the NRL could've been sent back, mailed to the moon or even posted on ebay - it really makes no difference because the players were cheating and benefiting from it

The players have been punished - none of them have grand final wins with the Storm; none of them have those minor premierships with the Storm; they all have to play 17 more games this season for absolutely no result.

In the end it is the club's fault as a whole, and everyone suffers - the only people I feel sorry for are the Storm fans (except the ones who somehow think they've been hard done by :?). They have to suffer because the management and players cheated - and most likely the coaching staff were in on it too...

 

[oldmancraigy]

There is no way to keep track of the salary cap.
What if a player goes to a certain pokie machine and suddenly wins the jackpot? There is no way in hell because as long as there are rules there is always someone looking for a way around it or hide breaking them.

People are allowed to win the jackpot, that is salary cap exempt.

A club can't really put the money in a brown paper bag and give it to a player unless they have some way of accounting for that cash in the first place. And that's tax rorting, which happens to be a federal offence.
I cannot imagine there would be a CEO stupid enough to think that would work.

Waldron's way of double paying for a marquee was quite clever, but he still couldn't put the money in a paper bag - he'd face theft charges if he did.

 

[Generalzod]

Have an outside accounting firm manage all NRL contracts..

 

[oldmancraigy]

Have an outside accounting firm manage all NRL contracts..

Let's take the Storm's example:

Why wouldn't they just send their falsified contract to the outside accounting firm???

The player could still sign the fake one and it could be kept in the 'other room, secret files'

I don't get what that would do except waste money paying someone to manage something that is already being managed?

 

[The EELiminator]

Let's take the Storm's example:

Why wouldn't they just send their falsified contract to the outside accounting firm???

The player could still sign the fake one and it could be kept in the 'other room, secret files'

I don't get what that would do except waste money paying someone to manage something that is already being managed?

have an nrl official present at all player contract signings and give them a copy

 

[oldmancraigy]

have an nrl official present at all player contract signings and give them a copy

Fairdinkum??

I might be an idiot, but if I was going to present a 'classified' contract (ie, the one with the cheating amount) to a player, I might just be smart enough to do that on a different day, when the NRL official was not there

As it stands, all contracts must be lodged and approved by the NRL. So the cheating contracts that Smith et al signed were kept in a 'secret file'. This was leaked by a disgruntled employee and the Storm got busted BIG TIME.

I fail to see how having an NRL official standing over a player when he signs the 'fake contract' for the NRL will help? Isn't that pretty much what happened with the Storm? The players signed 2 contracts, one got sent off, the other put in the secret room....

Everyone needs to stop pretending that this is all a big mistake and the players are innocent!

 

[stormbati]

People are allowed to win the jackpot, that is salary cap exempt.

A club can't really put the money in a brown paper bag and give it to a player unless they have some way of accounting for that cash in the first place. And that's tax rorting, which happens to be a federal offence.
I cannot imagine there would be a CEO stupid enough to think that would work.

Waldron's way of double paying for a marquee was quite clever, but he still couldn't put the money in a paper bag - he'd face theft charges if he did.

There you go though, theres a loophole! Theyre aloud to win at the pokies.
There is no way in hell to stop it completely. People will always find a way around it! True?

 

[oldmancraigy]

There you go though, theres a loophole! Theyre aloud to win at the pokies.
There is no way in hell to stop it completely. People will always find a way around it! True?

Yeah - but Waldron's method was still accounted for.

You can't just make money vanish unless you want to be accused of money laundering.

That's kind of a criminal offence.
Cheating the NRL salary cap isn't - that only results in sporting disappointment!

 

[The EELiminator]

Fairdinkum??

I might be an idiot, but if I was going to present a 'classified' contract (ie, the one with the cheating amount) to a player, I might just be smart enough to do that on a different day, when the NRL official was not there

I fail to see how having an NRL official standing over a player when he signs the 'fake contract' for the NRL will help? Isn't that pretty much what happened with the Storm? The players signed 2 contracts, one got sent off, the other put in the secret room....

it would only work if the nrl official witnessed the player sign the contract for x dollars and took a copy with him on the spot then if in the future a contract turns up for y dollars the nrl can check their copy and then someone's got some explaining to do

maybe this is what happens already i dont know but if players are signing contracts for different amounts wow we have a can of worms on our hands

 

[Mr Angry]

You strip cheaters of premierships, minor premierships and make them play for no points.

 

[oldmancraigy]

it would only work if the nrl official witnessed the player sign the contract for x dollars and took a copy with him on the spot then if in the future a contract turns up for y dollars the nrl can check their copy and then someone's got some explaining to do

maybe this is what happens already i dont know but if players are signing contracts for different amounts wow we have a can of worms on our hands

The allegation is that players signed 2 contracts.

Hanson presented signed copies of Smith and Inglis' "secret contracts" and their "official ones"

400k for the official (ie - the ones the NRL would be sent, or would have stood there and watched)
550k + 50k in gifts on the 'unofficial' ones (ie - the ones that got kept in the secret room)

Add in Smith's 100k for his Fox deal (Arranged by the club) and he's one expensive hombre! He takes up 1/6th of the entire Storm salary cap for next season by himself!

 

[JoeD]

You strip cheaters of premierships, minor premierships and make them play for no points.

Which happened to the bulldogs so that didn't deter melbourne much. IMO you have to make it so that the players can't help but know they are cheating and then if they do, ban them for a lengthy amount of time.

 

[Fonzie]

Make every player sign a Stat Dec at the end of each season declaring all income financial and non-financial) that they received in connection with their club or any sponsor of the club. The player Stat Decs would act as a 1:1 check against the club's books. Obviously this doesn't prevent a player colluding with the club and lying in the Stat Dec, but it makes players personally accountable and responsible if there are any dodgy payments that aren't reported. Any player who lies on the Stat Dec is deregistered for life.

The RLPA would probably call this an intrusion on player privacy, but it is necessary if we want the salary cap to be fair dinkum.

 

[siv]

Only way around this issue is to remove "Cash" as the value of player in respect to Salary Cap

Points system is the only way to go

Then it allows a club to pay a player what they want and removes the issue of performing a "audit", with clubs annaul financial report as the only issue financially

 

[oldmancraigy]

Only way around this issue is to remove "Cash" as the value of player in respect to Salary Cap

Points system is the only way to go

Then it allows a club to pay a player what they want and removes the issue of performing a "audit", with clubs annaul financial report as the only issue financially

Terrible system.

So Kurt Gidley would be worth more 'points' than someone like Brett Stewart??

Steve Turner is an Origin player, currently on more points than Brett Morris??



I'll keep saying it, the real solution is a soft cap system - that's the only way to make it work!