In this line of work, writing columns like this, you have to draw the line somewhere. I draw it at placing insulting adjectives before people’s names.
Sure, point out someone’s incompetence. But don’t call them incompetent. Expose someone’s lies. Don’t call them a liar.
Even in opinion pieces – but definitely in news – your job is to give people enough information for them to decide if someone is trustworthy or capable.
You shouldn’t have to say it yourself and, also, just because I once looked at porn doesn’t make me a pervert. Just because I had a few beers doesn’t make me a drunk (although, in my case…).
There are practical reasons for demuring just short of besmirching someone’s character, before dismissing them as a worthwhile human being. Calling someone incompetent will get you sued if you’re not careful – so it’s an all-round bad idea.
Which brings us to the Parramatta Eels board.
The evidence placed before us this week suggests that they discussed at a board meeting flouting salary cap regulations by providing inducements to so called third party sponsors.
Wait, there’s more.
Not only did they openly discuss it in a board meeting, they painstakingly notarised the discussion about breaking salary cap rules and had it signed by the chairman!
I am not sure than in 30 years I have ever felt so tempted to place an unkind and possibly actionable epithet before the names of a person or group of people.
But I will resist.
Let me just say their apparent actions were brain dead to an extent not seen this side of the Darwin Awards.
It has been compared to a game of thieves setting up a Facebook page for an approaching bank heist.
Remember the Cronulla player Pat Gibson? He was convinced he needed a passport to go to Townsville, he went to Homebush because he read the Storm were playing a game at Olympic Park, when told about frequent flier programs he was conned into asking a stewardess if he could join the mile high club.
Without casting any aspersions on his mental capacity, or those of the Parramatta directors, I would submit that Gibson would be a MENSA member compared to them.
This is what the ARLC is talking about when they want to dictate who is, and is not, on club boards. Perhaps it’s clue as to why successful business people like David Smith and Suzanne Young are no longer at League Central.
In my line of work, bumbling mea culpas from butchers, bakers and candlestick makers are priceless.
In their line of work – which was running a professional sport underwritten by $2 billion in TV rights – they are humiliating beyond words.
andrew
Guest
Democracy is the big loser here. The Eels fans only have themselves to blame. They elect these buffoons time after time after time. They need to create a position description for their Board that has a minimum capacity of having been on the Board of or managed a company with a national brand a turn over of $x million and xx number of employees.
Joe X
Guest
Thanks, Pat Gibson.
Kaks
Roar Guru
Agree with you there. The fans keep turning out week in week out which puts zero pressure on the board. I feel if the same was happening at WSW the fans would protest against such a debacle. At the same time, though, the FFA has a lot more control over the clubs than the NRL does, so I doubt a similar situation like Parra would arise in the A-league on that fact alone.
bigbaz
Roar Guru
Left hand screwdrivers, skyhooks, check the water in a VW radiator, fell for the lot of them as a youngster.
Stu
Guest
At least this year I don't have listen to the bleat of Eels supporters over some salary cap rort in 2009. It is eerily silent. Wonder why? If you are going to support a team that have a corrupt or incompetent board at least get a few wins along the way to appease the giant let down at the end!
Dean - Surry Hills
Guest
Just looked it up Pete - 5kms from Cannes, so much closer than Botany to Sydney's CBD. Fiddlesticks - back then the internet was in its infancy, and you couldn't book flights online. Flights were also very expensive in comparison to todays discount rates Cannes (pronounced Karn) was often pronounced Cans. People had heard of Cannes due to the International film festival. Combine a newbie at the desk of a travel agency in Melbourne, and a brother in law who identifies the 2,300km distance between the cities as a major trip, and you have a John Cleese style sketch in the making.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/sin-bin/sin-bin-former-macquarie-bank-heavy-hitter-bill-moss-turns-away-from-parramatta-eels-20150320-1m4ge1.html
pete bloor
Guest
Yes it does. Cannes mandelieu
offsider
Guest
Kaks I know you are a wsw fan also and its seems to me that if the wanderers were as badly run as the eels the fans would do something about it.ie a boycott or something to let them know of their displeasure. But the eels fans and members sit back and do nothing.
Matthew
Guest
People keep saying that and nothing changes. Sometimes I think some of these clubs in a Professional League are run like Amateurs clubs.
Andrew
Guest
I've been a eels supporter for 40 years, I don't the circumstances with board..I've heard rumours, but would like sterling to be the chairman of the eels. He as good character and so forth and he knows the runnings of most clubs.
Pablo Sanchez
Guest
Sadly yes. Here is an old link from the Silvertails website which reproduces the article in full. http://silvertails.net/threads/jock-sniffers.33421/ That kind of attitude prevails at Manly (not surprising when their media manager is Peter Peters - somehow his nephew Scott Penn is immune from the criticism) as demonstrated when Mark Bryant said on a podcast last year that they call professional administrators 'c*ck watchers'.. And we wonder why RL is so poorly run...
Bulldog
Guest
Rugby League, the game that keeps on giving.... incompetence. This week: the Fletcher stunt gone wrong (an accident waiting to happen); the Eels Board concoction and stuff up (an accident waiting to happen); today, the Kurt Mann goanna fiasco (an accident that did .... Its a never ending conga line of ineptitude, a daily laugh a minute, but wait there's more coming, this weekend
Blinky47
Guest
You mean mean you don't have to have a mental disability to play Rugby League ? How about that ? Who would of guessed ? I didn't know about the SMH Sin Bin Column so sorry about that however I still think It would have been better to leave the name out. As for 2 couldn't you communicate what you need to say without the "not very nice bit". Anyway end of spat I've got to try and remember how to knit, it's been a long time since I've done that, one tea cosy coming up(eventually) EB&D "
Happy Hooker
Guest
and to be fair Steve, you didn't call him an idiot, you just described the behaviours.
Dean - Surry Hills
Guest
Use your imagination. He would have told the travel agent that he wanted to visit his inlaws in Cairns in a thick German accent. The travel agent would obviously fly him to the nearest airport. Just like walking into a travel agent and saying I wanted to visit The Great Barrier Reef.
fiddlesticks
Guest
cannes doesnt have an airport
Kaks
Roar Guru
Im surprised people take what that drunk driving foot has to say seriously anymore
Parrafan
Guest
Our chairman is a former bankrupt plumber. If he couldn't keep a plumbing business afloat how the hell if he allowed to chair the board of business with a multi million dollar turnover. Crazy stuff.
John
Guest
Isn't he the chairman of Eels Board?