Here was I, thinking I could just unwind and ease into holidays, when NRL chief executive officer Todd Greenberg takes a Christmas-wrapped baseball bat to both the Sharks and Tigers.
Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe is fighting for his career, deregistered by the NRL after not disclosing an agreement to pay Robbie Farah as a club ambassador when he retired. Pascoe couldn’t argue it away as a simple oversight.
A fair bit of the circumstance around this didn’t make sense. According to the Tigers, Farah was such a ‘destabilising influence’ on the club that they had to get rid of him.
Yet as they punted him, they snuck a note in his back pocket offering him $639,000 – yes $639,000 – over four years to be a club ambassador, a role which as far as I know involves shaking hands with members and hosting boozed corporate types in the matchday dining suites.
Farah would have been insane to knock that back and it has to be stressed that he’s done nothing wrong here.
The club being mad enough to make that offer to a player who was leaving without doing their proper administrative diligence is what’s in question.
All they had to do was notify the NRL about the agreement and include it in their salary cap.
“The game’s rules are very, very clear on these arrangements,” Greenberg said when announcing Pascoe’s penalty.
“Any commitment to make such a payment should have been disclosed and should have been included in the salary cap. The club failed to do this.
“The club then compounded its conduct by submitting a misleading application to the NRL in relation to the salary cap treatment of money paid to Robbie when he left the club.”
That seems fairly straightforward.
Wests Tigers have come out fighting and Pascoe has until the end of January to respond. We’ll see how effective they are at putting their case. It would want to be a lot more impressive than what they’ve been offering up so far.
Wests Tigers’ CEO Justin Pascoe (AAP Image/Brendan Esposito)
As for Shane Flanagan, he’s been deregistered for contacting Cronulla while he was suspended in 2014, making decisions about player recruitment and retention. These decisions resulted in a premiership to the club two years later.
With this latest development and possible salary cap investigation outcomes in the pipeline, that premiership is now looking a little dusty. Not quite dirty right now, just a little dusty.
To continually ignore the conditions of Flanagan’s suspension, even when as Greenberg outlined “that message was reinforced a number of times to the club” is to once again spit in the eye of rugby league and everyone involved in it.
If you’re going to take the piss and show such blatant disrespect to the game like Cronulla did, more than once, you’re not entitled to complain about your treatment when you get busted.
CEO Barry Russell said the Sharks will appeal the severity of the fine but rather tellingly they’ve left Flanagan to fend for himself.
The catastrophists among us say this $800,000 fine, half of which comes from a suspended 2014 penalty from the club’s supplements debacle, could ruin the Sharks. It’s unlikely things would go that far but they’re already on shaky financial ground and are frantically racing around for sponsorships, a horrendous task for their situation.
If the Sharks do go out of business, so be it. But it won’t be the NRL’s fault. It will be a fate entirely of their own creation.
Supporters of both clubs are already on the front foot complaining that Greenberg and the NRL are out to get them, that the punishments are disproportionate and that there’s no consistency in how rules are applied.
As we tend to do in rugby league circles, the blame is being sprayed everywhere except where it belongs. We’re good like that.
But these are two fairly cut and dried cases (pending appeals of course) and if fans are angry at anyone, it should be at their own administrators – and Flanagan, in Cronulla’s case.
Don’t blame the rules. Don’t blame the media. Don’t blame Todd Greenberg. Don’t point at other clubs who pay former players for off-field roles. That’s a weak argument.
Cronulla and Wests Tigers broke the rules. They’ve stuffed their own preparations for 2019. If you’re angry about that, take it out on them.
In the end, what are we to make of all this? Do we finally have a strong, take-no-prisoners NRL leadership, fed up with all the bullshit and ready to clean house no matter who transgresses?
God I hope so. But I’ll reserve my judgement until I see what happens to the five players accused of inappropriate behaviour towards women this offseason.
That will show how serious the NRL is about taking a stand against those who keep dragging rugby league into the mud.
Hazza
Guest
Farah wasnt the destabilizing element of the club Roosters spy Taylor was responsible for this then a double whammy with Fool Guilds money creating more destabilisation with Cleary seems the fingers point to the big I's in a couple of teams that seem to always fly under the radar !
Reg Reagan
Roar Rookie
NZ was almost part of the Federation of Australia and only backed out of signing as a member state at the last minute on 1 January 1901. Who can say if they had joined whether they may have been one of the foundation clubs? However, they did not join and my comment still stands. They are taking up a spot in the competition that could be used for expanding the game nationally WITHIN Australia and if the situation were reversed IMO they would not hesitate to punt an Aussie team from their domestic competition to facilitate the growth and expansion of their game.
Footy Fan
Guest
The angle of "they've got in in for us" and they've over-penalised, redirecting blame back at the NRL doesn't fit at all. For the salary cap to work there can be no side payments at all. There are clear guidelines about what payments must be reported - i.e. everything. The rules basically say that if there's any type of payment to a player during their career or after, report the lot. The CEOs certainly know this. The analogy would be that Pascoe was given the NSW road rules and given his position after he passed the test, and then he's driven straight through a red light and claimed "I didn't know you couldn't do that". The Tiger's were pushing Farah out the door as a bad influence at the club, while claiming relief/allowance from the NRL. Meanwhile they're quietly making a mega-deal with him to come back to the club in 2/3 years for big payolla, and not registering with the NRL AND the contract is hidden away from staff and board members - "what they can't lay their hands on can't hurt them". All clear-cut cheating. The news is the auditors have a stack of concrete info to show the deceptions were calculated and involved deception. The financial penalty is roughly equal to the size of the cheating - seems entirely appropriate. And how can you allow a CEO so clearly and deliberately involved to return to a job at any club in the foreseeable future?
Reg Reagan
Roar Rookie
@ Admiral Ackbar So then irrespective of whether or not Perth get their own team or a relocated Sydney club you won't be shifting your support from the Cowboys then I take it? I was all for the Bears being reinstated to the NRL playing from the Central Coast when I was living there but I still would have followed the Rabbitohs regardless so I can understand you sticking to the Cowboys. Do you think there are many who live in Perth would rally behind a Perth based team? Also, is there a large Rabbitohs following in Perth as large crowds dressed in Rabbitohs merchandise would seem to indicate?
Admiral Ackbar
Guest
Or merge them with Storm to create Melbourne Sharknado
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Sporting leagues aren’t paying retail prices for airfares. They have sponsorship deals that includes essentially cost price travel. If you’ve got a friend that works for Qantas or Jetstar, ask what they pay for flights - that’s probably close to the cost.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
AFL does almost every year... don’t even need to look outside Australia to find one...
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
The classic “somebody else got away with it” defence...
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Majority of sporting organisations are poor businesses. Propping up your club with an unrelated business venture is horrible business. That’s money that should be spent on things like junior development, not a professional sporting team.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Hahahaha
AngryEagle47
Roar Rookie
Flog , so you can’t hold an argument so you resort to name calling , your not a goose your a mollusc , spineless jelly type substance
AngryEagle47
Roar Rookie
At the time of their cap rorting I believe it was News LTd , what a discrace
Admiral Ackbar
Guest
Thought you were a Knights man Reggie boy. I like the Cowboys, but they ain't moving to Perth anytime soon dagnabbit!
Admiral Ackbar
Guest
He'll do better than the Hayne Plane.
Admiral Ackbar
Guest
Right on Big Daddy. When the Western Reds (remember them?) were in the ARL they had to pay not only for their own travel costs, but for the travel costs of the away team as well. That's why the Reds joined Super League, the Sunday Times (then part of NewsCorp) offered them a sponsorship deal and Murdoch was seen as a hero over here (can you believe that?)
Peter Piper
Guest
Its a private group of business men I believe.
John
Guest
NZ might as well just be another one or two Australian states, we claim enough of their stars as our own when they do well enough.
Albo
Roar Rookie
Worse still ! That questions Flanagan's judgement as a recruiter !!!
AngryEagle47
Roar Rookie
Who owns the storm ! Bit of an unfair advantage to use this club as an example
Big Daddy
Guest
Adam, If Perth were really serious about entering a team in the NRL no better way to put a team in Intrust and build an infrastructure and when expansion does enter the equation there would be a base there. In relation to the travel costs its not going to be cheap. Maybe we should look at what it costs dockers and eagles.