Parramatta Eels say they can still afford Kieran Foran despite salary cap drama
Date
May 21, 2015 - 10:00PM
Chris Barrett
Sports Writer
Parramatta are insistent their salary cap drama will not stand between them acquiring star signings Kieran Foran and Beau Scott next year.
The Eels were on Thursday slapped with a $525,000 fine due to a total of $436,000 in cap breaches and told they will be docked four competition points next season if they do not comply with a demand for an independent governance review of their club and implement recommendations from it by February 29 next year.
The punishment led to questions about the ramifications for their recruitment drive - they are also pursuing disillusioned Cronulla fullback Michael Gordon - but they maintain the sanctions would have "no impact" on the arrivals of Foran and Scott.
"We are salary cap compliant right now in all four caps and we're forecast compliant next year including the contracts of players that we've signed," Eels chief Scott Seward said. "This is all about the past, it's got nothing to do with the future."
Parramatta's newly elected board will meet on Friday. They are said to be unhappy about the linking of governance reforms to the salary cap breaches and have left the breach notices with lawyers.
A host of current and former Eels players have been caught up in the cap mess through no fault of their own but the NRL honed in particularly on Parramatta's actions in fielding Junior Paulo, Taniela Lasalo and David Gower last year.
All three were not in the top-25 players but Parramatta, in such a hole at one point head coach Brad Arthur had only 16 players at his disposal, were elevated into the top grade against NRL warnings of a pending second-tier breach.
The Eels believe the Lasalo case deserves revisiting because of its circumstances. His $60,000 salary was automatically added to their bursting second-tier cap when he featured for four minutes against North Queensland in round eight. He was called in at the last minute when Mitchell Allgood, having suffered concussion the previous round, complained of a headache before kick-off. Parramatta claim that because they were in Townsville they had no other alternative and were looking after Allgood's welfare.
Parramatta's salary cap black hole, revealed by Fairfax Media last July, stemmed largely from having to pay more than $750,000 last year to players who had already left the club. Those eights players were Reni Maitua, Jacob Loko, Daniel Harrison, Jordan Latham, Cheyse Blair, Jake Mullaney, Matt Ryan and Brayden Wiliame..
As well as the cap breaches they were also sanctioned for $32,104 in benefits provided to Eels players by Parramatta Leagues Club, among them the payment for a car the club bought from front-rower Fuifui Moimoi in 2012. Moimoi's 2004 Ford Falcon had a market value of $3800 to $5200 but he was paid $15,000 by the club, who had been looking for a car for welfare manager Jason Irvine.
Last year was the fourth in five years that the Eels had been guilty of cap breaches, a strong factor in the NRL coming down hard on them on Thursday.
NRL chief Dave Smith said Parramatta's crime was incompetence over several years not systematic rorting despite the fact they had flouted warnings from head office.
"I don't think this is about cheating, I think this is about mis-management," Smith said. "The design of the penalty is to help them fix the club...not to hit them with a big stick. If the club does the right thing and takes the independent recommendations, applies the changes then they won't lose four competition points. If they don't they will."
The Eels self-reported their pending cap nightmare soon after the change of management that followed the election of Steve Sharp's board in 2013.
Such was their desperation to field a team last year they were permitted to almost double the $440,000 second-tier cap allowance, given the green light to field players such as Semi Radradra - before his contract upgrade last June - from outside their top 25. Their official second-tier breach is $233,036 so as a result they effectively exceeded the second-tier cap by more than $600,000.
In another symptom of the shoddy rostering inherited by Arthur they at one point had six players in their top 25 who were also eligible for the under-20s competition, meaning they had less top-line players to pick from and had to lean on thier second-tier earlier than usual.
Further breaches in the junior ranks were found via allowances of $15,000 paid to NYC players without enforcing the requirement that they have to study to receive that full payment.
