What we do know is that the team has only been retained in it's current form by way of cheating the salary cap. Whether the player knew of this or not is really not an issue other than in their ethical value. However, as the club has formed a roster outside the guidelines that roster should be torn up and re-negotiated from scratch, with all existing contracts paid out in full by the cheating club. All players should be on the open market now, and if the storm can then accommodate the "big 4" still then good on them. I mean it's been a while since they last won a premiership, what, 11 years or so?
I disagree with one of your points here!
By tearing up the contracts you are validating the cheatery.
It is exactly what happened with the Bulldogs debacle. They retained the nucleus of a squad assembled by cheating and won a premiership.
That is not on!
What is to stop Cronulla from spending $9million to assemble an awesome squad, win 20 games next season but then at the end of the year come forward and say 'oops - we spent too much'. Lose all the comp points, contracts get torn up and they get to renegotiate with the players they actually want who could then proceed to win them a premiership. (oh ok, bad example, Cronulla would still find a way to win 5 games).
No way.
The penalties are TOO SOFT. The only fair way to deal with this issue is for immediate action to be taken. That is, the club must get themselves UNDER the cap right now by removing players (and adding back minimum salary guys to still have a 25 man squad).
Once that is done, they are still compelled to pay the players they sacked the amounts they agreed for the length of their contracts.
And their salary cap value for the FOLLOWING season (ie next year) must be reduced by the amount that they cheated the cap by. (So a $3million cap for next season for the Storm only). If they cannot get under that amount, then the same story applies next season for the year following.
It sounds tough, but why should the clubs who play by the rules be penalized? And it is also a rule which applies from the smallest breach to the largest.
So if the Warriors were $45k over the cap this season, they'd have to remove a $100k player and add back a $55k, and have their cap value for 2011 reduced by $45k.
