As a follower of one of the other fifteen Clubs in the National Rugby League, I am becoming increasingly infuriated at the soap opera that continues to unfold at Parramatta.
Rather than comment amidst the immediate fallout from the salary cap breaches that were exposed earlier in the year, I felt it would be more prudent to wait. I wanted to give time for the dust to settle and reflect more holistically on the situation with a level head and offer some sensible ideas without vitriol, passion or hatred.
Unfortunately, this article was postponed by a series of off-field events that have further ridiculed the club. I have ultimately arrived at a point where I can’t wait any longer and I’ll try and squeeze this article in before the next landmine goes off.
Waiting for the smoke to clear and seeing Parramatta back on the road to stabilisation and solidarity seems almost futile.
Two other clubs have undertaken something near the financial rorts that Parramatta has committed to the tune of $3 million. In 2002 the Dogs were slapped with a thirty-seven point competition table penalty, a maximum $500,000 fine and various board members fell on their swords.
The club suffered financially, competitively and emotionally through the period and this was well deserved.
The Storm took things to another level through the 2006-2010 seasons. The stripping of their 2007 and 2009 Premierships and the 2006 and 2008 minor premierships, as well as their entire points haul for the 2010 season, was in response to breaches totalling $1.7 million dollars over a five-year period. The forced jettisoning of players such as Greg Inglis, along with utter embarrassment and public disgrace were all repercussions of the club’s fraudulent behaviour.
Both Canterbury and Melbourne were whacked and rightly so. The difference between these two examples and the Parramatta fiasco is that the clubs copped the punishment and for the most part, moved on. The evidence was irrefutable and there appeared to be no point in resisting the inevitable and the deserved.
This allowed the respective seasons to continue without constant distraction and media saturation. The Bulldogs played for points in the last few rounds and the Storm played out a season without the possibility of finals, playing for nothing except the development of combinations and experience for the 2011 season.
Parramatta has unintentionally hijacked this season and the absurd commentary about having to win twelve of the last fourteen, or whatever the equation, was an insult to all the other clubs.
The ‘head in the sand’ approach by the board has turned the entire issue into a circus that could erode much of the work done in the game recently in engaging with fans in terms of growing club memberships.
The NRL has realised that the AFL model of ‘money up front membership’ provides two clear advantages. Firstly, an instant revenue stream, but more importantly, a sense of loyalty to the brand that will hopefully create long-term trust and commitment between the paying member and the club itself.
The pig headedness of the Parramatta Board reflects absolute disdain for the disheartened members, the players and coaching staff and all football fans.
The fact that the Eels were slapped with a $525,000 fine in May 2015 for breaches in 2013 and 2014 along with the untruthful statutory declaration signed by the Club in October 2015, stating that they had complied with the salary cap rules, highlights the lies and the warning signs that were present prior to this season.
Therefore it probably shouldn’t have surprised when the new breaches, connected with third party arrangements, were first alluded to on March 9 this year.
If the coard had stood down and accepted punishment at that time the fallout from the whole affair may have already settled and the business of football might be the central focus of the media. That is, unless Parramatta were able to throw a few more curveballs at the NRL and its loyal supporters.
Corey Norman has accepted a $400 fine for his possession of pills after the now infamous meal at a Chinese Restaurant with friends.
Not to be outdone, Semi Radradra took his normal leave to visit family in Fiji. Rumours of French Rugby and Super League circled after allegations were made by a woman, claiming Radradra had assaulted her in 2014 and 2015 and Semi had still not returned. The ‘will he or won’t he’ charade was truly comical. His arrest upon his return was not.
Coach Brad Arthur further fuelled the fire claiming that there were senior figures at the club hoping that he would fail in his efforts to rejuvenate a team that had recently been brought to its knees . Rumours of an interested Warriors board approaching Arthur gained momentum after the coach claimed that the club had been ‘a shambles since I got there’.
To top off one of the most absurd self-destructions of a modern football Club, Channel Seven reported that a sex tape involving Corey Norman was shopped around to media at a reported price of $150,000.
Meanwhile, the Sharks have won fourteen in a row, the Cowboys continue to show premiership quality, Melbourne Storm are scaring the pants off everyone and the Bulldogs have built some real momentum leading into the finals.
You may have missed some of this while the media focussed, understandably so, on drugs, assaults, a recalcitrant Board, AVOs and AWOL players.
Clubs of the past copped the fine, the punishment and the ridicule, moved on and begun the process of getting their shop in order. Parramatta have shown no dignity, leadership or integrity in the whole saga and their punishment should be reviewed.
This scenario is more than just a salary cap breach. This is a club completely out of control on numerous levels and the harm this does to the game overall is immeasurable.
One of my closest friends sits nearby as I complete this piece. He tells me that for fifty-three years he has seen his club tear itself to pieces through both good times and bad.
Hopefully the removal of the entire coard might now create an environment that allows for some planning and implementation of structures for the future. The language of the statement sent to Parramatta members was telling, honest and long overdue.
Chairman Steve Sharp’s request to remove the coard due to his “conclusion that a Board elected by the members is not enough to overcome the deep-seated political issues at the Club” is an amazing yet accurate admission.
Sharp’s acknowledgement that “persons with improper motives will always seek to gain control of our great Club,” also reflects the cancerous culture and a need for the NRL to act.
There are fifteen teams trying to play footy and entertain and one club’s administration seemingly hell-bent on derailing any good work that is done.
Hopefully, the temporary administrator can do what so many have failed to do before. It is an unenviable job, yet for the game of Rugby League in Sydney, it might just be the most important one yet.
fazed
Roar Rookie
Stuart. Thanks for your reply, & the best part is your understanding. I have just watched the latest interview on the eels web site with coach Brad Arthur. This man has been a tower of strength at the club, yet so much of the questioning to him & the players deals with issues that are things they cannot answer, they are just as much if not more so victims of & in the problems from the leagues club administration & not theirs yet they cop it each week. For me, & I am a long time eels supporter of more than 40 years & seen the many lows, but also the highs & I am proud of them in this drama which is the worst in the clubs history & again I do not know of one eels supporter who would disagree with that. What I want to see, is some honesty in the way things go on. honesty from top to bottom at player, club & NRL levels, start the process of cleaning up the game & have that level playing field for everyone to understand what is going on, what needs to go & to happen. If this does not happen, the dissatisfaction at all levels will just continue to grow, & the game itself will decrease with a lot of uncertainty regarding the future & its survival. From an eels supporters perspective, rather than just a fan, we are at the bottom now, but the future is bright, only thing that can stall or stop it will be from forces from outside.
Stuart Thomas
Expert
A wonderful read Fazed, your passion drips off the screen. I guess the issues you refer to towards the end of your comment is so key. The questions that you raise are vital. How WAS info leaked, decisions made or not made and the did the NRL manage things as best as they could have with the knowledge they had. Thanks for reading, I really tried to exclude the fans from the piece as ,once again, they become the innocent victims in administrative nonsense that has permeated the Eels for so long. Hopefully this is the bottom of the curve and real change is on the way. Wouldn't that be great?
Stuart Thomas
Expert
Thanks Barry, I guess the phrase 'cheating better' is one that might only come from the mouths of those who do the cheating. I was working with a touch of sarcasm there in reference to 3 million being larger than the amounts the other two clubs had used fraudelently. I think you are on the money though. If fans become marginalised, as is obviously happening at Parramatta, Tigers and Dragons right now, it can't be good for the game long term. Wonderful call from a Dragons supporter yesterday on talkback about the supposed long term plan for the club that apparently exists yet has been explained to no one. The Farah thing is mystifying. Fans hate all this nonsense. Thanks for the dialogue, enjoyable as usual.
fazed
Roar Rookie
Lets consider the value aspects of what the eels have done along with the others, especially the aspect that the storm was running two sets of books, seems to have been forgotten. In dollar terms with what the cap was back then compare it to todays cap value. The dogs had someone of high profile taking the days merchandise money home to count rather than it going to the club. The eels situation, goes back some years & precedes the board just suspended, when they had a CEO that was involved with one of the above mentioned clubs & quite open in what he did, & who actually recommended him to the eels, same as the more recent one just sacked, with references? The sacked board had self reported all the incidents they could last year, when a forced governance & salary cap audit was carried out by PWC & by the NRL auditors. At the end of which there was disagreement over some aspects of the governance review which were subject to further discussion re the bringing in the 4 items not agreed by the board. The fine was subsequently reduced owing to the so called breaches being because of accepted needs owing to injuries & the team having to have 17 players name in the run on side. 4 points were suspended with the prospect of them being applied should further breaches occur. At that point of time, being end of 2015 the club was deemed as cap compliant & things moved along to this year. Suddenly through leaked documents from board meetings the club was under suspicion again, the media goes into a feeding frenzy on all sides to find out every little area they could with what was going on. The eels are caught out, fined & docked 12 points, deemed guilty without knowing the exact charges. They got caught & as one reporter were guilty of the cardinal sin of the so called 11th commandment , Thou shalt not get caught. So the club losses its whole board, an administrator appointed & guess what, this is what the members have been calling for now for some time. But lets not get ahead of ourselves. They got caught but the big area of where they got caught is with the wonderful fantasy land of TPA payments, being deemed illegal. Surely they never existed back when the Storm & doggies got caught, or they were all above board. What comes out is the story of the clandestine world of TPA payments, player agent/managers trying for top ups outside the normal agreed NRL legal contracts that have limits on them. TPA as it seems have no limits & cannot be guaranteed by the clubs meaning any club & not just Parramatta. Also affecting these items is the aspect that people with businesses associated with a club cannot be used to provide TPA's, so the eels get caught with the son of a club supporter who has money & supplies items to the club is caught out, along with some other similar deals as well. possibly not much different to a player whose spouse owns a business & gets a contract for work at a particular club, or a house at another, or a car or two at another or the manager of another resigns & the NRL cannot touch him. Thing is that all the clubs pay out TPA's of course all are legal except the eels ones which they say were guaranteed by the eels so they are illegal. Problem is that, how often do we here of players complaining about their TPA's have not come through, surely the wonderful agents who act on behalf of the players would not pressure the clubs to take over the failed TPA's would they? So to make it legal at least for the eels, they include in the punishment on top of the 12 points deduction, then a later addition of the removal of for & against points (a new tack on), the already $1m fine, all the TPA deals that were supposed to have been arranged by the agents, & not guaranteed by the club, into the next 2 years salary caps, thus the penalty is a continual one over what will end up being the years from 2015 (first offence) until 2018, when they should have a clean sheet. So compare with the Storm & Dogs, & even the Warriors what is the comparison in terms of their specific years in money terms? The Storm was caught in the year following their GF victory, were deemed over the cap then & in the year they were playing in (so I understand) & why they were docked points in that year owing to them being over the cap again. For the eels, if they play in the finals it will be as the result of much adversity, along with the loss of 3 senior players in Jnr Paulo, Nathan Peats & Keiran Foran. Also back up center Ryan Morgan, along with several other injuries with the team flat out finding fit players to play, they have at least a full team out at the moment compared to the beginning of the year when they were supposedly cap compliant. But now we sit in a position of possibilities only for this year with two more years of cap punishments ahead. The other interesting this is that the eels have the former NRL cap auditor who did the forensic audit in 2015 which concluded with the club being clear & cap compliant after players were not resigned & the applicable fines were paid. When this latest era began the same auditor worked with the club which had several players leave in order to become cap compliant. The win in the early 9's tournament which consisted of players primarily from the non top 25 team was stripped as was the prize money. If other clubs supporters looked at the whole story, as to what penalties have been applied to the eels they may find things a bit different. Despite what some media journalists & commentators would have all in NRL land believing the majority of eels supporters are in denial regarding what has gone on, that too is not correct, as I know no eels supporter who actually believes we are & were not guilty. For over a year now there has been moves to try & force new elections but of a type to rid the club of factions & get business people on board. The fact that we finally had an EGM set up for next month is proof of that. The other big thing that the eels supporters, & members would love to see, & I would think so would most others of all the clubs want to see the NRL really look into the whole area of the salary cap, especially the role played by all the player agents/managers in the way that these TPA's are sourced. One thing that the NRL could do would be to have a clause in the standard contract along with any TPA agreed contract that the player & Agent/manager acting on behalf of the player, that simply states that any TPA entered into by the signatories to the TPA are not guaranteed by the club, & no claim can be made against the club or persons associated with the club. Lastly, if there is one thing that I & I know many other supporters of not just the eels would love to see & I have seen many such articles written is for a forensic investigation to take place into what has happened with the eels, including how private interviews & the like were leaked to sections of the media, along with investigations into the handling of these issues by the NRL as well as the agents & their roles in placing clubs in the positions they are in now, all of them.
The Barry
Roar Guru
I really don't understand why this keeps coming down to a Sydney thing. The Dogs are from Sydney and got their season wiped. Let me assure you the Dogs cop more than the occasional jibe. Greenberg was very clear in handing out the punishment that he didn't like the way the Melbourne team and fans had their 2010 season ripped apart and that he wanted to avoid that situation again. The penalties have been evolving. It's a learning curve for administrators as well. The Dogs had to get their team under the cap but were allowed to re-negotiate contracts. They won a comp two years later so the NRL felt that wasn't appropriate. Melbourne had to get under the cap but weren't allowed to renegotiate contracts - they had to shed players. They also won a premiership two years later - but that was with quite a different team, even though the core players remained the same. Melbourne fans though had to watch their team run around in 2010 for half a season playing for nothing. So this time, the Eels have had to shed players but the penalty has been devised in a way that allows the Parra season to still have meaning even though any realistic chance of success is a snowballs chance in hell. I call that pretty smart administrating. They are trying to learn from the mistakes of the past and apply penalties in a far from perfect situation. It's got nothing to do with you're from Sydney, you're from Melbourne,
The Barry
Roar Guru
The concept of cheating "better" is a strange one but even if we allow that cheating better is a thing then I don't think the Eels can lay any claim whatsoever to good cheating. They 'won' two spoons and never made the 8 while they were cheating They were caught pretty easily and had a paper trail a mile long including meeting minutes on strategies of how to rort the cap. Most of the players they brought in while cheating have turned out for one reason or another to be lemons. Watmoughs injuries, Forans off field issues, Norman's penchant for bikies, drugs and porn (sounds like a bit player in sons of anarchy). They've had to offload quality players and break up the squad prior to winning anything - other than the 9s. So no, I don't think they have "cheated better" than anyone. I don't really have sympathy for the Eels club (fans I do) but I do respect the way that Arthur and the playing group have responded to crisis after crisis, have had their team torn apart but have kept showing up and winning. I don't think you can over estimate how hard that is. I originally thought the 12 points was a light punishment at first but they've had all the illegally obtained points taken off them. The points they've accumulated are all with a legal squad. It's given the season an extra dimension.
Stuart Thomas
Expert
Just to add Mike, where would the eels be running with their twelve points back? Top five I think. On their way to buying a premiership. Granted the wooden spoons earlier, yet they cheated better than anyone has before. Your thoughts?
Stuart Thomas
Expert
Fair point Mike TV but right from the outset I have been astounded at the general good will and hope for the eels to get back on their feet, the consensus that the board are too blame and let's move on, we need parra to be powerful etc. Melbourne still get annihilated and the dogs still cop the odd jibe. The roosters are accused of the same thing every year despite a clean record. Throw the book at them I say. Too much love for a Sydney club. Thanks for reading I really appreciate it and enjoyed reading your comments.
MikeTV
Guest
People probably look upon the Eels "sympathetically" in comparison to Melbourne simply because Melbourne won premierships while the Eels won wooden spoons. Would you like Parramatta to hand back their wooden spoons from a few years ago ?
The Barry
Roar Guru
Why the anti-Sydney sentiment (again)? The Bulldogs are a Sydney club and no one has ever felt sympathy towards them I can assure you. They also copped a significant penalty. I think one of the differences with the Storm was that they won premierships while cheating the cap. On an emotional response level there's a big difference in having a champion exposed as a cheat as opposed to someone who hasn't won anything. In the process they also denied other teams a shot at the title.
Stuart Thomas
Expert
Hi Richard, thanks for reading the article I really appreciate it. You may have noticed that the reference to the Storm taking things to another level comes immediately after the reference to the Bulldogs. This is a chronologically driven expression where the Storm had in fact rorted the system even more substantially than the 'dogs. The Parramatta infringement is indeed far worse when one looks at the dollar amount as well as the time period involved, hence the remainder of the article where I state that the penalties applied should probably be reviewed in light of the other offences that have also occurred. The whole saga is appalling and the Eels have now placed themselves in an extremely difficult position in the short term. Enjoyed your comments, I totally agree that there does appear to be some sympathy offered to the Eels, that in fact, was the inspiration behind the article. Sydney clubs do appear to get a leg up at times.
Richard Maybury
Guest
"The storm took things to another level" How do you equate that statement which involved $1.7m when the Eels total is circa 3m. Further more, there are many many fans that are only to happy to continue to howl "cheats" at Melbourne, Bellamy and some of the storm players and yet the Eels are looked upon almost sympathetically. There are massive double standards here. The storm were rightly hit and hit hard but the current Eels penalties are nothing but a feather duster. It seems that if your a Sydney club then its OK to cheat. If anyone were challenging their penalties, it should be the storm and if anyone were challenging due process then again it should be the storm but as you say, some clubs are man enough to move on.