The salary cap is the salary cap. Everyone knew the rules. Melbourne Storm knew the rules. Melbourne Storm broke the rules. You’ve got it right, Mr Gallop.
Stripping premierships, fining the club and having them play for nothing in 2010 is an outcome the Storm and any remaining supporters should be happy to accept. The punishment is not too harsh and could have been much worse.
A harsh example needs to be set.
If other clubs are proven to be breaching the rules to the same extent then they too should expect the same punishment. Think about a person who is caught stealing $1.7 million. If his only punishment is to repay the $1.7 million, then that’s a free option that any borderline criminal would readily snap up.
Unfortunately, the Storm’s supporters are missing out, but that’s the cards they’ve been dealt. Their team’s management has shown no respect for the game, no respect for the rules and, sadly, no respect for them.
The club needs to be punished accordingly and the supporters have the choice of staying solid or walking away.
Claims that the Storm did what they did because of the restrictions that a salary cap imposes on a modern rugby league team are preposterous. The salary cap may need to be modified, but to argue a flawed salary cap in defence of the Storm misses the point entirely.
The cap is what it is, and without one, teams would spend their way to oblivion. If they are lucky they might jag a premiership on their way out.
The reality is that rugby league in Australia doesn’t have, nor is it ever likely to have, the resources to compete with the English Super League or rugby union. It would be great to turn out 15 other teams that play at the same standard as the Storm, pull in the crowds and revel in the spectacle, but the game simply can’t afford it.
So the solution is to have a salary cap and to enforce it.
This is what the NRL has done. If players feel exploited and leave to play elsewhere, to the point where rugby league in Australia becomes a second rate competition with interest levels and media coverage akin to the Shute Shield, then so be it.
The alternative of not having a salary cap would guarantee this outcome after teams begin to fold anyway.
A few comments on the views espoused by former players and media commentators on the Storm’s salary cap breach. Springing to the defence of the Storm players and their agents is tedious and predictable.
It’s not hard to mount an argument that the players would have been aware of what was going on. Agreed they wouldn’t know whether the total $4.1 million cap was being exceeded, but if a player has signed two contracts for differing amounts, surely he must know something is amiss.
Even if a player has signed one contract and his bank account or tax return shows a higher than expected amount or he mysteriously finds bundles of cash in the glovebox of his Porsche, then once again, he must know something is amiss.
Finally, Andrew Johns believes that the Storm’s premierships are still theirs regardless of what the NRL says and that he would laugh in the face of any administrator stripping him and his Newcastle team of their 1997 and 2001 titles if the situation ever arose.
Johns’s attitude shows a truly unfathomable level of arrogance and a complete lack of respect for a game that has funded his lifestyle.
You’ve got it right, Mr Gallop.
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