I'm with Coleman on this one. Players trust their managers, simple as that.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport...lary-cap-rorting/story-e6frepbf-1225860303007
Storm players not necessarily in the know about club's salary cap rorting
AND, as the sun sets slowly off the starboard bow of Greg Inglis's boat, a flock of seagulls passes overhead and screams as one: "The players must have known, the players must have known ..."
What I don't get is why people find it so hard to comprehend that a group of seemingly intelligent young men don't know where their income is coming from.
Obviously those people haven't spent much time in football-land.
It works like this: footballers get stuff. All sorts of stuff. It starts out small, but the bigger they get, the more stuff they get.
They get money and cars and boots and golf clubs and shirts and pants and bags and drink vouchers and movie tickets and, as we all know, some get boats.
When the players get really famous - and let's face it, they don't get much more famous than the Big Four at the Melbourne Storm - there is so much stuff coming in from so many different directions, that it is hard to keep track of.
So they don't try.
It's sort of like when pop star Sting sued his former financial adviser Keith Moore back in 1995.
Apparently Moore had helped himself to $10 million of Sting's money over a period of 15 years. When asked in court why it had taken him so long to realise the money was missing, Sting answered along the lines of: "Well, when you've got as much money coming in as I do, who's going to notice a mere $10 million?"
Of course footballers don't make anywhere near as much money as pop stars, but they'd like to - which is why they hire managers.
It is managers who do the deals. The players just sign on the dotted line and put their hands out when the stuff arrives. How it gets there is largely immaterial.
It was very illuminating to read that of all the offers made to Melbourne Storm players by CEO Brian Waldron, only one - Billy Slater - bothered to specify that his deal must adhere to salary cap regulations.
Does that prove that the others knew that their deals didn't comply with the rules?
Not at all. Only that they didn't want to know one way or the other - and can you blame them?
When it comes to "stuff" it's better not to know too much. That way, when you are asked questions, you don't have to tell any lies.
Same with the agents. I've heard many times this week that the agents "must have known what was going on".
How "must" they have known?
By asking Brian Waldron for details of every player's remuneration and then grabbing their calculators and working out the total?
By asking for a written guarantee that all third party contracts would be lodged with the NRL for approval and not shoved into a locked drawer?
Hardly. When it comes to salary cap issues, managers and players do their best Sergeant Schultz impersonations: "I see nussing . . "
I, on the other hand, have seen some sing ... er, things.
I have been at a player's house when a truck blocked the road outside his house and a courier dragged a giant box full of T-shirts, hoodies and shorts up to his front door.
Nothing to do with a sponsor or the salary cap, just a sportswear company hoping the player might get photographed wearing its gear.
I know of a player who rang a building company to get some work done at his house. When the substantial quote arrived the player was told the total would drop to nil if he would allow them to put his picture and an endorsement on their website.
A notoriously publicity shy AFL player agreed to an interview with me, as long as we photographed him on the golf course swinging his new - free - Calloway clubs.
And then there was the time I was at a player's waterfront Sydney apartment when his manager called. A BMW dealer wanted to know if the player would be interested in driving a brand new top-of-the-range model for a year.
To his credit the player did ask one question before accepting the offer.
What's that? Will it comply with the salary cap rules?
Of course not. It was far more important than that.
"What colour?"
