Stormgate could bring down other NRL clubs

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 25 Apr 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Matt Orford looking dejected during the NRL Round 22, Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles v Melbourne Storm at Brookvale Oval, Sydney, Friday Aug. 8, 2008. Storm won 16-10. AAP Image/Action Photographics, Grant Trouville

Phil Rothfield, The Daily Telegraph’s leader of its rugby league reporters pack, had a terrific story on Friday about the last days and hours of Brian Waldron as a sports administrator.

My guess is that all the administrators of other NRL clubs who read the story would have shuddered a bit with the thought that their club might be next on the rorting hit list.

In the Rothfield story, Waldron comes across as a arrogant, bossy type of person, a smart-arse full of bluster and brutal charm, who will turn very nasty, a bit like a trapped rat, if things turn against him.

So there is Waldron earlier on in the week, when he still thought he was in the clear, on the phone constantly to Rothfield telling him ‘don’t make a big deal out of this but there are four very minor things they are looking for.’

As an aside, these lies give people involved in running things a clue why reporters tend not to believe the spin dealt out to them all the time.

Back to the chase, though. As it became obvious to Waldron that more than four minor things were being looked at and that explosive evidence of rorting had been discovered, the tone of the calls to Rothfield changed.

Rothfield suggests that Waldron was ‘panicking’. Reading the story I got the impression that Waldron had adopted a posture of defiance, the sort of defiance of someone who knows he is going down and is prepared to bring down as many other people as he can with him.

Waldron made three specific accusations: ‘There were people on the board who knew about everything that was going on.’

Accusation two: ‘What about xxxxx leaving us and getting paid $200,000 by sponsors zzzzzzz outside the cap by team yyyyyy?’

Accusation three: ‘This is a joke. All clubs do it.’

During my time as a lead writer for the SMH, I wrote many editorials about corruption within the NSW police force. I spent a good deal of time arguing that the ‘rotten apple’ theory, that the rogue cops were a small minority of the total, clean force, can completely wrong, and mischievous.

My argument was that there was systematic corruption in the police force, what was called ‘the joke’. The whole barrel was tainted with corruption, an argument that the Wood Royal Commission endorsed.

Now apply this analogy to Stormgate. The harsh treatment by the NRL of the Melbourne Storm and, in due course most probably, officials like Waldron seems to be based on the notions of the rotten apple theory. John Hartigan, the iconic chairman of News Ltd, talked about a couple of ‘rats’ in the ranks to explain why Stormgate had happened.

But what if Waldron is right? What if every club is doing, to a lesser degree presumably, what the Storm had been doing to rort the system? What if lots of people knew what was going on?

The SMH gave Andrew Stevenson the privilege of writing their front page colour story on Friday on the Stormgate affair. Stevenson, a rugby league tragic, is one of the best of the Young Turks in the SMH’s sports department. His excellent story carried the headline: ‘It’s happened before – and will happen again’.

This seems to endorse Waldron’s line that rorting the salary cap system is endemic among the NRL clubs (with the exception perhaps of the Cronulla Sharks who are too broke to even reach their salary cap limits).

This brings us back to Phil Rothfield. Underneath the article on Waldron, he ran another piece, which was more like an editorial, titled: ‘It’s time to sort this out – the clubs’ dirty little secret puts the very future of the game at stake’.

And what is the dirty little secret? According to Rothfield, who has been covering rugby league for 34 years and knows most of its secrets: ”Salary cap rorting has got so far out of control it’s almost time for the NRL to call for an amnesty.”

But can the NRL allow an amnesty after its draconian attack on the Melbourne Storm? And will the NRL try to isolate Stormgate by turning a blind eye on the rorts that all those in the rugby league game know are going on all the time?

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