FORMER Melbourne Storm chief executive Brian Waldron has hit back at News Ltd and the National Rugby League for their involvement in the club's salary cap rorts, rejecting their depiction of him as the sole architect of the scheme.
Breaking his silence for the first time since the scandal broke last week, Waldron has called for a public inquiry into salary cap cheating, which he says has spread through NRL clubs over several years.
In a statement, Waldron told
The Age he would ''tell everything I know'' to any properly constituted, transparent inquiry that required evidence under oath.
He singled out News Ltd for pointed criticism, stating: ''I am
prepared to give the entire background to Rupert Murdoch so that he has a full understanding of how his company has managed a $66 million investment in the Melbourne Storm since its inception.''
In a meeting at a friend's office in central Melbourne, the casually dressed Waldron spoke fluently, forcefully and at length, but strictly off the record, sticking to legal advice not to talk about the salary issue.
He laughed off the ''Where's Wally'' jibes of recent days, saying he had gone about normal activities - watching his son play football in Camberwell, going to his mother's 79th birthday and having dinner with friends. At times like this, he said, ''you stick to the closest 30 people in your life''.
He stressed that he had ''strong legal advice'' not to comment publicly on methods NRL clubs used to evade salary cap rules that limit ''third party'' payments above players' base salaries. The advice is because of the possibility police will investigate the affair.
But Waldron has confided in friends, family and former workmates since the scandal erupted last Thursday, when the NRL announced it had stripped Melbourne Storm of its last two premierships, fined it $500,000 and forced it to return $1.1 million in prizemoney, and banned it from accruing any premiership points this season.
Sources close to Waldron have told
The Age he is determined not to let powerful interests use him as a scapegoat for a payment system he says was compromised and corrupted well before he joined Melbourne Storm (from AFL club St Kilda) in 2005.
One well-placed source said yesterday Waldron had named News Ltd executives and NRL chief David Gallop as being aware of widespread salary cap cheating for years.
Waldron believed that News Ltd - owner of Melbourne Storm - and the NRL have vested interests in deflecting attention from suggestions they knew about systemic pay cheating, he said.
Waldron has told several people he warned Gallop three years ago that systemic salary rorting was ''a cancer'' that affected every NRL club except Canberra, which was too broke to pay players more than it should.
But, Waldron said later, Gallop had ignored the warning and had never raised the matter with him again.
A source said last night that Waldron had called Gallop in 2007 as a scandal was brewing at the Newcastle Knights after a former club accountant alleged systematic rorts there.
''He [Waldron] made it clear he thought such practices were widespread throughout the game and that if the NRL were serious about tackling this issue, the only way for this to be done was to have a moratorium whereby clubs could put their hands up to past sins and start from a clean slate,'' the source said.
''Without some sort of amnesty it would be impossible even for those clubs that wanted to do the right thing to straighten out their books.
''But Gallop said that such a deal couldn't be an option. He told Brian that if extensive details came out about breaches in the salary cap
it would be too damaging to the sport's reputation, as it could lead to fans questioning results they'd seen on the pitch.''
Gallop last night would not confirm or deny the conversation with Waldron. He told
The Age that if the conversation had taken place, he could not recall it.
Waldron's advisers are intrigued by the new role of veteran News Ltd rugby league troubleshooter Frank Stanton.
Stanton is painted in some quarters as ''a clean pair of hands'' assigned to clean up the salary cap mess.
But it is not the first time News has sent Stanton to Victoria: he arrived to settle a $700,000 salary cap breach in 2004 that occurred on the watch of foundation Storm chief executive John Ribot - before Waldron started at the club.
In his statement yesterday, Waldron said: ''There is a great deal I would like to say about my five years at the Melbourne Storm, a club that I have the highest regard for and whose players are the finest and most courageous group of sportsmen I have ever seen run onto the field of play.''
That's the pity of it, he commented later, in a moment of reflection: they are a great team that will now be remembered for the wrong reason.
Source: The Age
