Telegrpah: I will not say sorry

[Hurriflatch]

Rugby League

I will not say sorry
By DEAN RITCHIE Rugby League Writer

July 15, 2005

SOUTH Sydney patriarch George Piggins was last night point-blank refusing to apologise to rugby league's salary cap auditor Ian Schubert – despite a demand to do so from the NRL.


Piggins revealed that he had sent a letter to NRL chief executive David Gallop with information that could spark a salary cap investigation.





The NRL last night hit out at Piggins' controversial claims in The Daily Telegraph yesterday that some clubs were rorting the game's $3.3 million salary cap.



At one point yesterday, Schubert was considering legal action against Piggins.



But a Souths press release issued yesterday afternoon praising Schubert's work headed off any litigation.



In a day of drama yesterday:



 THE NRL sent Souths a strongly worded letter rebuking former chairman Piggins and claiming his comments were "counterproductive and insulting" to Schubert.



 SOUTHS released a statement claiming Piggins was not an official or director of the South Sydney football club but was a "high-profile supporter".



The drama started on Monday when star forward Ashley Harrison walked out on Souths to sign with arch-rivals the Sydney Roosters.



A day later, NSW five-eighth Braith Anasta – Piggins' nephew and a Souths junior, also joined the Roosters for less money than was being offered by Souths.



Piggins was digging in for a stoush yesterday, re-affirming his belief the rich clubs are rorting the salary cap and that all clubs should be audited independently.



But the NRL is furious with Piggins.



Gallop said Piggins had attacked Schubert's "competence and integrity".



"No matter how rigorous an audit process is in place there will always be a role for information that emerges through informants or even disgruntled employees," Gallop said.



"Every NRL contract is the subject of a detailed audit at the end of each season as is all spending by clubs.



"The NRL has issued severe penalties to enforce the cap in recent seasons and will continue to do so where appropriate."



Gallop's letter to Souths claimed that an independent audit showed "a lack of understanding" and such suggestions were an attack on Schubert's character.



The letter also demanded that Piggins apologise.



"The club and those associated with it, especially Mr Piggins, owe Mr Schubert a sincere and public apology in order to mitigate the serious harm occasioned to him by this attack on his competence and integrity."



But asked would he apologise, Piggins said: "Nope. I didn't insult him [Schubert]. I said the system wasn't working – I didn't give a thought to Ian Schubert.



"I sent a letter to David Gallop today and if he has any ability he will see why I have these [salary cap] suspicions.



"I'm not after anyone's scalp or for anyone to get into trouble. I just think the system has to be changed.



"It [salary cap] doesn't tell the truth.



"It allows clubs with the most cash to cheat. Some people keep putting their heads in the sand and hoping this will go away."



Asked further about salary cap auditor Schubert, Piggins said: "He didn't catch Canterbury [for their 2002 salary cap scandal]."



Souths' current chief executive, Shane Richardson, backed Schubert's performance and the salary cap.



"We have never attacked the character of Ian Schubert and we have never questioned his competency or integrity," Richardson said.



"George Piggins is not an official, or a director of the South Sydney Football Club and his comments have been made as a high-profile supporter of the club."

An NRL statement said: "We would welcome any information that South Sydney or any other club can provide in assisting Mr Schubert in his efforts."

http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1264&storyid=3445512

It could just be ol' George having a cry about his boy Braith going to the Roosters but if these claims have any merit it could be a major blow to what has been a great year.

 

[Hurriflatch]

Souths, NRL at war over cap 'rorts'
By Greg Prichard
July 15, 2005

The NRL has dismissed as ridiculous an anonymous document that supposedly serves as evidence that an unnamed club is cheating the salary cap.

A copy was sent to South Sydney patriarch George Piggins, who forwarded a copy to the league. But the league also received a copy from the author, who signed it "Mr Con Cerned".

Piggins received the anonymous fax containing a list players and their earnings on Wednesday.

"It's a list of players and the sort of money they would have to be earning for the club to stay under the salary cap," Piggins said. "I looked at it and I found it hard to believe some of the players named would be on the sort of money they would have to be on. It [the document] might be garbage, I don't know, but it might also show that the system is flawed. I've sent it to David Gallop to have a look at it."

NRL chief executive Gallop said the document showed no understanding of how the salary cap worked. "The figures do not appear to be correct and there is nothing in the correspondence to suggest they are anything other than one person's opinion," Gallop said. "George's own letter to us agreed that it [the document] doesn't constitute hard evidence."

But Piggins wasn't backing down from his crusade against the rorting of the salary cap that he believes is going on in the game. He was quoted yesterday describing the salary cap as "a joke", that it "just doesn't work" and that the league had to do "a better job of policing it".

"It should be fairly obvious, some of the stuff that is going on," Piggins said.

He alleged that some clubs were breaking the salary-cap rules and estimated there would be about 30 NRL players whose contracts did not accurately reflect what they were earning. Piggins also said there should be an independent audit into the salary-cap dealings of some clubs.

The league's salary-cap auditor, Ian Schubert, was understood to be angry at Piggins's comments and the league hit back on his behalf yesterday.

A statement quoted Gallop defending the salary cap and Schubert's role. Gallop also wrote a letter to Souths expressing his disappointment at the comments made by Piggins.

Gallop wrote: "The club and those associated with it, especially Mr Piggins, owe Mr Schubert a sincere and public apology in order to mitigate the serious harm occasioned to him by this attack on his competence and integrity.

"Shooting on suspicion through media headlines is both counterproductive and insulting to those who work diligently in ensuring we have an effective salary cap.

"Claims that an independent audit is needed show either a lack of understanding of the processes in place or, alternately, represent an attack on Mr Schubert's character."

Piggins said he had criticised the system, not the individual, and he would not apologise.

"He'll be waiting a long time for it [an apology]," Piggins said. "I don't think I owe him an apology and I'm surprised he wants one. I was complaining about the salary cap. I didn't mention his name.

"The point I'm making is that the salary cap should be able to work better than it is working."

Souths chief executive Shane Richardson, who argues that the league is doing all it can to police the cap with the resources it has got but that it needs more resources, issued a statement in the wake of the league's response yesterday.

Richardson said Souths had "never attacked the character of Ian Schubert and we have never questioned his competency or integrity".

"We believe that Ian Schubert is doing an excellent job in auditing the salary cap; however, we want to ensure that he has every resource he needs so that we can remain confident that the cap can continue to be policed fully," Richardson said.

Richardson pointed out Piggins was not a Souths official and said his comments had been made as a "high-profile supporter of the club".

"We don't have control over comments that media outlets choose to air from people outside of the organisation," Richardson said. "However, I don't believe that Mr Piggins has brought into question the character, competence or integrity of Ian Schubert, either.

"We feel the salary cap is very important for the fair and equal running of the game and that Ian and his team continue to have every resource possible available to them so they can police the salary cap to its fullest."

Gallop called for anyone with information that might be genuine evidence of a salary-cap breach to come forward.

"No matter how rigorous an audit process is in place, there will always be a role for information that emerges through informants or even disgruntled employees," Gallop said.

This one from the SMH suggests George could be the butt of a big joke.

 

[Tommy Smith]

Any merit? LOLOLOL

A letter containing a few unsubstantiated, senseless figures sent to George by a Mr Con Cerned LOLOL

The bloke is a laughing stock. Wouldnt surprise me if he made up the letter himself.. either that or a roosters fan was taking the piss.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/league/souths-nrl-at-war-over-cap-rorts/2005/07/14/1120934363446.html

 

[Hurriflatch]

Tommy: As you know we rarely see eye to eye

but I'd love it to be option B.

 

[Raider_69]

cry me a river Goerge
players dont want to play for the preverbial wooden spooners, and there my friend is your problem
Get off the bottem with smart, astute fringe first graders and juniors then look at marquee's. Or do what the Raiders do, we know with our current circus of coaches and admin, as well as the players being reluctant to move to canbera, we know that we cant attract high profiles so we target the 2nd teir, boarderline reps and good solid first graders...

 

[Choppies]

poor bitter old George.

Someone should staple his mouth shut.

 

[UndertakerMike]

He did go over board. :roll:

Look after yer own back yard Georgey

 

[ParraDude_Jay]

He's absolutely right though, the Roosters are cheating the cap. Yesterday, to try and make people believe they aren't, they released the amounts of money that the players that are leaving are on, and that list lost all credibility when they quoted Chris Walker as being on $200,000 a season. They claim that the players that leave for the last 2 years have been worth upwards of 1.5 million dollars, which is an absolute joke that they'd think people would swallow that bullsh*t story.

Piggins, whilst going about it the wrong way, is trying to help strengthen Souths and weaken checkbook champions the Roosters, who just buy the best player coming off contract in whatever position they need to fill. Hodges leaves, they buy (then) promising centre Joel Monaghan, they lose Hegarty and replace him with 2004's leading tryscorer Amos Roberts, and also buy promising young foward Fa'aoso. Add to that their 2004 undefeated, billion dollar Jersey Flegg team and there is no problem?

*edited*

 

[LRC]

A parra fan calling roosters cheque book champions....thats hillarious.
Parra buy the most players out of all the clubs.. before the 2004 season they must have set a record..this year they went close again..

Hell... there has been many times in recent year swhen the roosters have played the ells , where the roosters have had as many or more local juniors as well as recruited juniors.
Thats a disgrace from the eels part...give the roosters the eels boundaries and I can assure you theyde get more out of it then the eels are.

If it wasnt for Politis and gould and PAcker ...the eels would never have got Smith,Dymock Pay etc..and also not the coach (some may argue this would have been a good thing)..they couldnt get themselves out of the slump they were in during the 90s and needed another clubs patriarchs to help them.

 

[humpy]

Guys,

When Walker signed his deal, it was reported that it was weighted at the back end of the deal to make up for the $45k he was reportedly paid when he came over from Souths. As for the figure of $150k for Ricko, people forget to mention that it was listed with an asterisk stating that he qualified for the $100k for being a 10 year player and this was just the salary cap figure.

As for replacing good players that leave (i.e. Hodges, Hegarty, Robinson) with other good players (i.e. Monaghan, Roberts & Fa'aoso), well that is what good teams do.

 

[RainMan]

If only George could see that 'marquee' players do not want to play for South Sydney. No matter what the offer is in front of them. Players want premierships not spoons to remember in their old age.

 

[ParraDude_Jay]

A parra fan calling roosters cheque book champions....thats hillarious.
Parra buy the most players out of all the clubs.. before the 2004 season they must have set a record..this year they went close again..

Hell... there has been many times in recent year swhen the roosters have played the ells , where the roosters have had as many or more local juniors as well as recruited juniors.
Thats a disgrace from the eels part...give the roosters the eels boundaries and I can assure you theyde get more out of it then the eels are.

If it wasnt for Politis and gould and PAcker ...the eels would never have got Smith,Dymock Pay etc..and also not the coach (some may argue this would have been a good thing)..they couldnt get themselves out of the slump they were in during the 90s and needed another clubs patriarchs to help them.

You = dickhead

 

[Southern Rooster]

Any merit? LOLOLOL

A letter containing a few unsubstantiated, senseless figures sent to George by a Mr Con Cerned LOLOL

The bloke is a laughing stock. Wouldnt surprise me if he made up the letter himself.. either that or a roosters fan was taking the piss.

Mr Con Cerned he might be Greek.

 

[OVP]

He's absolutely right though, the Roosters are cheating the cap. Yesterday, to try and make people believe they aren't, they released the amounts of money that the players that are leaving are on, and that list lost all credibility when they quoted Chris Walker as being on $200,000 a season. They claim that the players that leave for the last 2 years have been worth upwards of 1.5 million dollars, which is an absolute joke that they'd think people would swallow that bullsh*t story.

Piggins, whilst going about it the wrong way, is trying to help strengthen Souths and weaken checkbook champions the Roosters, who just buy the best player coming off contract in whatever position they need to fill. Hodges leaves, they buy (then) promising centre Joel Monaghan, they lose Hegarty and replace him with 2004's leading tryscorer Amos Roberts, and also buy promising young foward Fa'aoso. Add to that their 2004 undefeated, billion dollar Jersey Flegg team and there is no problem?

*edited*

Hindmarsh 300-400k
Cayless - 250k
Tahu 300-350k (reported in the papers last year)
Morrison - 200k
Stringer - 180k
Riddell - 200k
Smith - is obviously on the cheap, but will need to be upgraded next year.
Grothe - 150k maybe more

You see how easy it is to make baseless accusations against clubs and players ? Backing it up with actual facts though, is a LOT harder. Maybe people like you Jay should try to get some facts on what the players are earning, otherwise you end up looking like that senile old fool, Piggins.

 

[hybrid_tiger]

Piggins is a senile old fool, who is still living in the "golden old" days and just can't keep his mouth shut.

He is an embarassment to Souths.

 

[Mr Saab]

Hindmarsh 300-400k
Cayless - 250k
Tahu 300-350k (reported in the papers last year)
Morrison - 200k
Stringer - 180k
Riddell - 200k
Smith - is obviously on the cheap, but will need to be upgraded next year.
Grothe - 150k maybe more

Riddell is on more than 200k
You also forgot Vella who would also be on a bit

 

[Hurriflatch]

If you look at Parramatta's team this year they do have a number of local or recruited juniors

Of players who have played 1st grade this year OR were in the top 25 at the start of the season

1. Wade McKinnon
2. John Williams
3. Ben Smith
4. Ashley Graham
5. Eric Grothe
6. Luke O'Dwyer
7. Tim Smith
8. Michael Vella
9. PJ Marsh
10. Justin Tsoulos
11. Nathan Hindmarsh
12. NAthan Cayless (C)
13. Jack Afamasaga

14. Luke Burt

players like Robinson, Marsh and McKinnon may have spent time at other clubs but were originally developed by Parramatta.

Next year with Parramatta unlikley to recruit any players that number will rise with the likes of Cordoba, Taia, Green, Reddy and Oake coming into the top grade sqaud.

Not saying the Roosters don't have a lot of recruited juniors in their side however even they have benifited from a problem that has faced Parramatta in recent seasons of other clubs coming in and poaching all of Parramatta's juniors as soon as they make the grade (ie Jersey Flegg or above) now admitingly part of the reason for this was the decsion to sign players like Vella, Cayless, Wagon and Dykes to long term big $$$ deals making it hard to keep all the juniors but if you look at some of the clubs statting with the 2004 Grand Fianlists.

Roosters: Jason Cayless & Heath Le'Strange
Bulldogs: Andrew Ryan, Willie Tonga and Chris Armit

are players who were originally developed by Parramatta and in the cases of Cayless, Le'Strange and Armit local juniors.

I'm not going to get into if the Roosters are or arn't cheating I'll argue all night about if they were cheating prior to 2005 but lets assume they were not then based on who they are letting go I'd actually beleive that next year they will be under the cap.

As I said it's debateable if prior to releasing the likes of Cayless, Fittler, Firman, Walker, Hodges and Ricketson they were under the cap but I've figured out it's not worth to trouble trying to think about that so let's just assume they were under or on the salary cap.

 

[DJ1]

Piggins doesn't have to apologise to Schubert. He never attacked Schubert personally. His attack is on the credibility and auditability of the salary cap.

The fact is that all major breaches were not discovered through the standard auditing system. The Dogs systematic breach in 2001-02 was an internal leak in an attempt to oust the CEO. The $450K backdoor payments for Wing were only discovered when Souths Juniors attempted to get Souths football club to pay for the players which they could not get re-imbursement for and Craig Wing was not on the list. Adrian Morely's girlfriends new Ford XR6 was only discovered when Adrian broke down in it and Schubert happened to pull up next to him.

The bottom line is that the system cannot be effectively policed. The distribution of talent excuse clearly doesn't hold up when Chris Walker leaves a $300K contract at Souths to take up a $45K one at the Roosters and Braith signs with the Roosters for $280K in the face of $500K - 800K offers.

Just as Ricky Stuart was not fined $10,000 as he was calling the referees decision incompetent and not the referree, George is saying that the salary cap system is a joke not the auditor himself. The threat from the NRL of legal action is a joke and would not go in their favour.

 

[Hurriflatch]

Your kidding yourself if you beleive Braith is actually on 280k

not disputing that he signed at the Roosters for less then he could've got at Souths but not that much less.

 

[DJ1]

Your kidding yourself if you beleive Braith is actually on 280k

not disputing that he signed at the Roosters for less then he could've got at Souths but not that much less.

I'm not the one who believes it. That's for Mr Schubert to decide.

Schubert: How much does Braith get?

Canavan: $280K from us and $50K from Samsung.

Schubert: Is that it?

Canavan: That's all that's written there.

Schubert: Oh OK, so it is. Must be true then.

That's how the current system works!