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Melbourne Storm's Cameron Smith (centre) and teammates celebrate with the trophy after winning the Gillette World Club Challenge match at Elland Road, Leeds, England, Sunday Feb. 28, 2010, after their defeat of the Leeds Rhinos. (AP Photo/PA, Anna Gowthorpe)
At the risk of attracting the ire of league fans everywhere, I feel the time is right to settle down and have an objective look at the Melbourne salary cap debacle.
On any given comments page either here at The Roar or the Daily Telegraph, mentioning the Storm is met with howls of protest at their deceptive and cheating ways.
There will be wild accusations of the “he looks shifty” variety, suggesting that star players were not only well across contractual law, but were keeping track of the clubs finances.
There will be pleas to have the team and its players variously stood down for the season, banned forever and arrested. There will be vigorous denouncement of any comment which purports to offer some support to the fans and players at the Storm.
All of this centers on a single misconception: that the Storm are the only club to have breached the salary cap in recent history.
The NRL, on its website, provides detailed information which refutes this. Since 2000, NRL clubs have breached the salary cap multiple times to the tune of more than $4.2 million (including the Bulldogs 2000 – 2002).
Keep in mind that this figure does not include several other breaches for which dollar amounts are not provided.
It is clear that teams regularly exceed their salary cap. What is different in this instance (and in that of the Bulldogs in 2002) is that certain senior administrators actively hid these breaches and (it is alleged) committed fraud in order to do so.
It is therefore only reasonable to assume that at this stage, the real wrongdoers are those who perpetrated this breach of faith. Fans of the game are right to be angry, but should direct their anger at those who have caused this mess – not the players, not the Storm’s fans and not those directors whose job it is to represent them.
This brings me to the legal challenge being mounted by a group of directors independent of the club and News Ltd against the sanctions imposed by the NRL.
I feel that the sanctions were reasonable in the circumstances. However, the club and its members deserve to have a fair hearing and I have faith that they will get one.
That being said, I am confident that the courts will uphold those sanctions as fair and everyone wins.
Rugby league fans generally will know that cheating will not go unpunished and fans of the Storm will know that their punishment has been fairly applied.
When I hear that fans are ready to walk away from the game over this, I am stunned. Can it really be that we are now so precious that this – an accountancy fraud – is what will drive us from the game we purport to love?
Years of off field misbehaviour, public drunkenness, assaults, alleged sexual misconduct, public defecation have not dented the spirit of rugby league fans. But this is for some the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I would implore those fans to stay strong and keep faith in what is a great game; it will rebound and become stronger than ever.
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