What continually annoys me with these repeated salary cap breaches is the players continue to be untouchable. Players have a window of about 10-14 years to earn as much as they can from the game, I just don't believe for a second that any player at contract time does not ensure he knows every aspect of the payments they are going to get. To sit there and say I didn't know what I was receiving and leave that to my manager is insulting.
DCE was on Big League Wrap and they asked him only a couple of questions about the cap issue, and then moved on to talk about footy. What the f**k? Ask him questions like does a player sign a contract not knowing every aspect of what they are getting to play for a club. Ask DCE why the backflip from the gold coast to Manly and exactly what payments were disclosed to him. ASk DCE if he will be retaining his manager following these revelations.
What needs to happen is from the CEO down, every contract that is signed and lodged with the NRL needs to be accompanied by a statutory declaration from all involved that the money declared in the contract is every dollar that is being paid to that player as an incentive to sign for that club. The CEO,whoever in the club is in charge of recruitment, the player manager and the player signs it.
Next salary cap blow up punt the lot of them from the game for a lengthy ban, years. Ignorance is not a defence and I don't believe for a moment the player isn't 100% aware of what he is getting, but this lay off the players stance is just inviting it to continue, not to mention the very light sanctions applied.
Many have been rorting the cap for 5 years with brown paper bag payments essentially. Yet the worst thing they get is a salary cap effect for two years, not money off the grant, but a little less money to spend under the cap. And Manly have the nerve to want to appeal the severity of the punishment. Insanity.
This would by my punishment, stripped of all competition points for those 5 years, history can record them running last for those years. The fine is fair enough, the lowering of the cap for the next two years is fine but it needs to come off the grant also.
If the results for any period of rorting still stands then there is no real incentive not to. Melbourne lost premierships from this, it should not matter if you finished 10th or 4th, you should have all points stripped for those years.
