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http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...t-underthetable-payments-20160711-gq3et2.html
Parramatta Eels officials Jason Irvine and Scott Seward admit under-the-table payments
11 July 2016
Kate McClymont
In explosive testimony before NRL salary cap investigators, Jason Irvine and Scott Seward have admitted to what amounts to theft and fraud in an attempt to honour under-the-table deals for cash payments to Parramatta rugby league payers.
Seward, the former chief executive officer of the Eels, and Irvine, the former football manager, have admitted to the NRL that players were paid in cash, which was removed from the takings of club's merchandise sales.
"You know cash is king," Irvine told investigators of removing funds from merchandise sales before the proceeds were banked.
The pair also admitted to participating in a scheme in which two suppliers were told to inflate invoices to the club. When the club paid the invoices, one supplier returned the inflated amount by way of cash, which Irvine personally collected. Another supplier paid the money received from the inflated invoices into Irvine's credit union account.
Irvine then withdrew the cash and handed it to Scott Seward who paid cash to whichever player "was hammering him the most".
"I didn't think it was illegal," Irvine told NRL investigators in his interview with them on April 1. But he acknowledged the practice of inflating invoices to give cash payments to players was "shonky".
By the end of 2014, Irvine and Seward were desperate. Their predecessors had promised thousands and thousands of dollars in the under-the-table deals, which had been negotiated in cafés with nothing more than a shake of the hand.
"The players are like animals you know. They feed wherever they can," a frustrated Irvine complained to the NRL about players and their agents baying for their unwritten deals to be honoured.
According to his signed statement, Seward told investigators that by the end of 2014 he had to find $589,000 to honour these unwritten deals to players.
Seward's statement indicated that Peter Nolan, the then-recruitment manager, was aware of the details of most of the deals. He said that when he took over as CEO in mid 2013, he had expressed his concerns to Nolan as to how he was to find the money.
In his statement, Seward said Nolan told him not to worry because "people will help us out".
Irvine said that Seward was "under the pump really severely once" and he phoned Tony Herman, a former under 20s' coach, whose company Green Options was doing groundwork for the club.
"Mate, we need 30 grand," Irvine claims Seward told Herman.
According to tax invoices obtained by Fairfax Media in early 2015, Green Options was asked to transfer three amounts – $40,000, $32,000 and $17,490 – into Irvine's credit union account.
However, Irvine was adamant that only two of the amounts were paid into his account which he then provided in cash to Seward.
He told investigators that a mysterious transfer of $37,000 from his account to Jarryd Hayne was personal and had nothing to do with the club. Irvine was not asked where the money for the $37,000 payment to Hayne had come from.
Irvine also told investigators that his close friend, Leba Zibara, whose company supplied clothing to the club, helped out with inflated invoices.
Irvine said he went to Mr Zibara's home on the Central Coast on several occasions where he collected envelopes containing wads of cash. According to the transcript of his evidence he collected an estimated $20,000 in cash from Mr Zibara which he provided to Seward.
Irvine said he only once gave cash directly to a player and that was to former Eels hooker Nathan Peats.
"It was diabolical," Irvine told investigators about the "six grand" he gave to Peats early last year. He claimed Peats had said, "Mate, I am not playing footy no more" unless the club honoured his arrangements.
Irvine told the NRL that it wasn't his job to "know every rule inside the NRL". His job was getting players on a bus, feeding them "and making sure no one got caught at strip club".
