If the NRL wants clubs to actually stick to the salary cap, they need to start making the people who benefit most from rorts – the players – truly accountable.
Since 2002, the Bulldogs, Warriors, Storm, Eels and Sea Eagles have come under serious scrutiny for breaching the salary cap – that’s an issue roughly once every three years.
Clearly, the current deterrents are not working.
Yes, administrators and agents have received bans, clubs were docked points and, of course, Melbourne were stripped of their 2007 and 2009 premierships.
But do you know how many players spent time on the sidelines as punishment for their roles in the five aforementioned breaches?
Zero.
In 16 years of scandals, not a single player has been officially sanctioned for giving the NRL the finger in the name of making an extra buck.
That sends a crystal clear message to the next bloke who is offered the chance to help their club cheat the competition by scamming the salary cap: you will not be held accountable.
Or, in short, “Go for it!”
Now, rugby league players are pretty good at playing the ‘I just let me manager handle the money side of things’ card. It sounds believable too, because society loves to perpetuate the myth of the ‘dumb’ footy-head.
But while the manager facilitates the deal, the player signs the contract – or, as was the case in Melbourne, the two contracts.
Put yourself in their shoes (because this is one of those rare occasions where the experience of anyone who’s ever worked stacks up to those of elite athletes).
If your boss put two contracts stipulating different salaries in front of you, promised you’d receive the higher amount, but insisted you sign both anyway, would you honestly believe nothing fishy was going on?
Ditto if a part of your weekly wage came from a completely different company or it was handed to you in a bag at a Macca’s carpark.
You’d know something wasn’t on the level – even if you were a ‘dumb’ footy-head.
Besides, professional athletes are taught from very early on that any substance that enters their body is entirely their responsibility.
Is it such a stretch to expect they take the same accountability for their bank account?
The solution, as I see it, is two-fold.
Firstly, players should spontaneously have their bank accounts audited.
Much as the salary cap auditor goes through a club’s books to ensure everything is on the up-and-up, the NRL should employ a team of financial boffins to go through every player in a club’s top 30 at least once a season and ask pertinent questions about any income that isn’t officially signed off on as under the cap.
Think that’s an invasion of privacy? These are blokes who have a complete stranger follow them into a bathroom to watch them urinate into a jar to ensure they’re not doping.
Having your privacy invaded is part and parcel of being a professional athlete.
The upside is being paid potentially millions of dollars to compete in a league that has made billions of dollars by promising fans – the people who ultimately foot all the bills – their competition is fair, because it has a salary cap.
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Secondly, players found to have benefited from scamming the salary cap receive lengthy bans.
Because, ultimately, cheating the salary cap is a form of doping.
No, a fatter wallet doesn’t necessarily mean you train harder (although if Australia’s Olympic power walkers earned the same salary as the average NRL player just to train and compete, I bet they’d never lose another race). But in a competition where the salary cap is held up as a primary means of ensuring equality, cheating that cap is to manufacture an unfair advantage.
Your team is afforded a benefit that the clubs which stuck to the rules and only spent the allotted amount are not.
What’s more, you’re also screwing over your own teammates, because if you get caught, the whole club’s in trouble.
It’s as selfish an act as that of Nesta Carter, the Jamaican runner who got busted for doping in the 4×100 metres at the 2008 Olympics, so seeing Usain Bolt stripped of his gold in that event, taking away his perfect record of three golds in three events at three Games.
Yet for some reason, when NRL players cheat their opposition and cause their teammates to lose competition points, or even premierships, the punishment they receive is to become wealthier.
Maybe they’re doing it in the pursuit of victory, maybe because they think everyone else is doing it, maybe they’re just greedy.
These are all the same excuses we hear from guys who get popped for steroids.
Yet the NRL goes after those who facilitate and administer financial doping, but seem to turn a blind eye to the guys whose wallets bulk up.
It’s time the primary beneficiaries of this blight on the game stop getting away with it scot-free.
No more blaming the manager – if it’s in your account, it’s your money – if you benefit from your club scamming the cap, you get whacked with a hefty ban.
Rick
Guest
Spot on. People who accept dubious payments are assisting with fraud. If you sign on for a specified amount - including sponsorships - you know what your income is going to be. You are also aware it will not be paid in cash. All players know about the drug rules - they also need to be financially aware to the extent that they know where their funds come from and how it is being spent. Undercover payments are devised to be secretive - particularly from the tax office. This requires a criminal penalty, not only for those devising the schemes but also for the recipients - in this case the players.
Ad-O
Guest
Total garbage. They are not public sector workers, or part of collective bargaining agreement. They have no idea what at their employer pays their team mates, nor is it any of their business, and nor should they want to.
Tricky
Guest
The present NRL salary cap is a restraint of trade minimising the ability of a bulk of NRL players the opportunity to earn their salary in an open marketplace. There should be an U.S.A. style system as in the NFL and NHL. All salaries are transparent. Each team has the opportunity to spend up to a higher salary ceiling if they are able to afford the expenditure. Those teams that can't afford to do so can underspend but are required to have a a prescribed minimum number of contracted players. Yes there is a degree of imbalance between the strength of sides based on salaries alone. However an NRL sides salary expenditure alone does not necessarily guarantee a sucess on the field. Just ask the Eels or the Bulldogs.
mushi
Roar Guru
Also no investigation to date has found that players should have been reasonably aware. But the editor of the roar has engaged in a smear campaign
Matt H
Roar Guru
It depends on the type of breach. If the team is over due to back ended contracts or TPA's how is a single player to know what others are receiving, such that the club is non-compliant? If an individual player is a party to signing two contracts or knowingly receiving additional payments outside of his contracts that is a different matter, but it would be hard to prove. For example, the player could argue that all the contracts he signed were the same (more than one copy of a contract are often signed), but then pages have been changed after the fact. For outside payments, he could argue that the club told him it was a TPA that would be registered. It is out of his control from that point on. So I don't see it as being effective. You are almost forcing the players to take the role of salary cap auditors. And if a club is over the salary cap in total, how do you determine definitely which player contract is the one that tipped them over? Which player is the responsible one that gets fined?
mushi
Roar Guru
I'm still not sure about that. How many clubs has the NRL bailed out since inception? If they let clubs run wild then it creates a moral hazard if they bail them out and it destorys the game if they don't. The cap can work (as evidenced by many other comps) - the NRL just has done an incredibly poor job of it.
John
Guest
Fair call. I probably should have said worst article in recent memory.
John
Guest
Paul it's what players would have to resort to doing if they want to ensure that they will get paid what is stated in their contracts. What's the use of signing a contract when that puts the club over cap, and the player has to pay the difference? Why make the party that auditors from Deloitte stated in their findings had the least culpability in the sham take the biggest hit? I would say players hire people to make such declarations, they rely on those people to ensure they will get paid and that the right thing is done, so they can focus on playing. Not saying all players are like that, but I would say the majority of the players out there would be in that situation.
mushi
Roar Guru
Though to be fair the cash in the bag thing for cap fraud seems to be an allegation. The storm just labelled the payments internally something else so at first glance it seemed the cash had come from nowhere. Here's the thing - fraud isn't actually all that tough to do. The storm made two mistakes: They went too big too consistently. They should have ebbed and flowed with the amount, done the odd oops sorry we didn't disclose this one and take a fine for a techncial breech and have the odd clean year so that if they got caught it would create a fire break (it seems from the outside that the NRL investigations stop once you can show you used to be legit). I'd also have mixed up how I'd breeched it so as to again thwart a rinse and repeat style investigation. They didn't look after everyone that knew. You need to keep something like this tight, and look after everyone invovled. A whistleblower is the most likely down fall and as such should be the primary risk you address.
Wal
Guest
All you folks talking about getting cash in a bag and the footy dumb heads should know its wrong. Why?? They are accustomed to it! Doesn't anyone remember 2004 with Gasnier? The night started with the Blues Management giving each player $1,500 in cash for the night out, and thats 2004!!
mushi
Roar Guru
Also the responsbilities of differnet aspects are seemingly born by different entities in that fact pattern. If News aren't guarnateeing all of fox sports or melbourne storms commitments then the recourse under the contract doens't go to News
steve b
Roar Guru
Its simple scrap the cap !
GoGWS
Roar Guru
You’ve answered your own question in your first line. It is the NRL clubs that benefit from any cheating of the cap by retaining and/or poaching players they would otherwise contract. And the NRL clubs are the ones who have the knowledge of the aggregate payments to all the players. This belongs at the club level. If clubs are organising mutiple contracts to be signed, or giving various freebies on the side, then wack the clubs and club administrators. It’s up to the clubs to be declaring everything a player gets - playing salary and any other ‘freebies’. Whatever system is in place at the moment is clearly not working given the number of clubs that have been caught cheating, and the frequency. Better controls and tighter audits at club level are needed - and far bigger fines to disincentive cheating. And what happens to the dishonest people at the club involved in this cheating? Do they just shrug their shoulders and move on? Does anybody ever get the sack? Or is cheating the cap normalised behaviour?
mushi
Roar Guru
Am I the only one who sees the irony of the editor of the roar doing a misinformed hatchet job on the integrity of NRL players at the same time that several of their Experts have written articles regarding the #talkthegameup and in the process had a bit of a crack at other media organisations for their seemingly agenda driven, research light, negative pieces.
mushi
Roar Guru
Why is it a players repsosnbility? On what grounds do they become accountable for the fruadulently presented contract rather than the legal agremeent they've entered into.
mushi
Roar Guru
Not really because the side agreement is often signed by the same parties, it allows for flexiblity in dealing with the ancillary matters. Also worth noting that the I think the Foxsports one was considered legitimate by the NRL as it was a comeptlely independent contract that (going from memory) and they were aware of it. A quick read of the the forensic accounting synopsis had the players getting paid as per the side letter but the Storm moving it through their accounts as invoices from third parties.
mushi
Roar Guru
On the senior execs actually only if they are working for a listed company. Also it is an incredibly long bow to draw saying that the third string half at say Wests Tigers is equal to the ELT of lsited comapny
Josh
Guest
You mean like all public servents do and all senior corporate executives
Brian George
Guest
John, you obviously haven't read too many Roar articles then, most of them are far worse than this one ?
Lroy
Guest
If you make the players accountable for salary cap breaches then they will challenge the cap in court and they will win. The only reason a salary cap exists is because the players agree to it.