https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sp...d/news-story/84c8255223e2fd8ddf9c02e88b931cb0
NRL: Player agents escape Eels scandal largely unscathed
The Parramatta salary cap scandal cost the Eels millions in legal fees, fines and lost sponsorship. It also claimed a slew of high-profile scalps. Remarkably, after an investigation stemming more than two years, player agents are set to walk away largely unscathed.
The Australian understands only one agent has been issued with a please explain over the cap scandal, the embarrassing outcome serving to highlight why the NRL and players union are fighting so hard to bring in new rules governing the regulation of player managers.
The agent accreditation committee — the organisation currently charged with monitoring player managers — is understood to have met on Tuesday night and decided to issue a single breach notice, a decision that appears highly disproportionate to the price paid by the Eels.
The club was fined $1 million, docked 12 premiership points and stripped of their 2016 Auckland Nines title.
The rorts related to third-party payments over a five-year period and led to the deregistration of a host of officials from the game. The majority of the Eels board was also removed, with several other directors standing down.
Parramatta supporters and sponsors were forced to endure a period of pain as their side was given little hope of playing finals football.
Remarkably, the player agents have largely been absolved of any blame.
As many as 11 were implicated in the scandal — references to player managers are littered through hundreds of pages of witness testimony. And the scars inflicted by the scandal are only just healing at Parramatta.
The club and officials paid a hefty price — both financially and emotionally — after the NRL integrity unit waded through reams of documents, and conducted interviews with players and officials at the Eels.
The sense was that the agents would also be targets. Yet the accreditation committee decided it only had enough evidence to confidently act against one player manager and was reluctant to take a risk on any more given they would have left themselves open to legal action.
The committee was already forced to seek indemnities from the ARL Commission to pursue the agents amid fears that a legal fight would cripple the organisation.
Those fears have been diminished greatly given only one agent is under the gun. It is understood a breach notice has been issued against the agent involved, giving him five days to respond to the allegations.
The decision to only pursue one agent is likely to prompt a backlash across the game and intensify the push to give the NRL or Rugby League Players Association greater powers to investigate agents when there is evidence of cap violations.
While the NRL was able to pool all the evidence of cap rorting in order to take action against the club, the accreditation committee had separate strains of evidence against individual agents, much of which relied on testimony from officials who were arguably unreliable.
The inability to sanction the agents en masse has cast a glaring spotlight on a system that was already undergoing review.
Few people within the game have faith in the current structure, and that view is likely to be fuelled by the outcome of the Eels investigation.
The NRL and RLPA have been in talks with the player managers about setting up a new scheme that would allow the game to more closely monitor and regulate their work.
The system, which the NRL and RLPA hope to have in place by November 1, would raise the age at which players can be signed and limit how long they can be tied down.
It would also give the game more financial clout to pursue agents who breach the rules and potentially mean the powers of the integrity unit could be enlisted to help investigate any allegations.
The agents are railing against the plan, having enlisted a lawyer to present their side of the argument as they seek to protect their turf.
The investigation into the player agents at the centre of the Parramatta scandal shapes as the final straw for those championing change.
While there will no doubt be anger at the decision to exonerate the vast majority of player agents, there will be some form of relief at Parramatta as the curtain is finally brought down on a tawdry period for the game and the club, which was decimated by the salary cap scandal.
The scandal also prompted a review of the third-party system. That review is ongoing, although it is understood little headway has been made.
