Did the NRL overreact to the 2010 Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal?

It is 13 years (has it really been that long?) since former NRL Chief Executive Officer David Gallop announced Melbourne Storm’s unprecedented, eviscerating punishment for salary cap breaches.

The removal of 2 premierships, 3 minor premierships and a World Cup Challenge title, a fine the equal of the breach amount, and virtual elimination from the 2010 competition.

It was a shocking and mesmerising time, for its illuminating expose of the worst aspects of human nature. At its heart was deceit but more compelling were the many unhinged responses.

Last week, the Storm returned to the Docklands stadium, the scene of their first game after the 2010 sentence was handed down.

I went to that game and, as Craig Bellamy noted recently, didn’t expect anyone to turn up. It was made more significant after the team’s dramatic walk towards the cameras at the recently completed AAMI Park earlier in the week.

As a Storm supporter it was difficult to excuse the rorting and to allay my fears it was the cause of the success of the early Bellamy era. We walked into the stadium with a sense of guilt and dread but also exhilaration. It was still us versus them.

As far as the premiership was concerned, the team’s thumping of the hapless Warriors was meaningless.

Craig Bellamy. (Photo by Robert Prezioso/Getty Images)

But as a unique phenomenon (no team had ever played for no premiership points) and a fortifying moment for a team expressing their shock and anger towards those administrators responsible for the rorting, and as a response to the hate they endured at a level not seen before or since, despite several teams being found guilty of extensive breaches – it was exhilarating.

Let’s return to the afternoon of 22nd April, 2010 as Gallop methodically removed all of Bellamy’s team’s achievements.

The media labelled it the darkest day in Australian sport. Storm chairman Rob Moodie thought he needed to apologise to the ‘Australian people’.

Others made comparisons with infamous US scandals such as Watergate, referring to the deceit as Stormgate. The club’s owner News Ltd.’s Daily Telegraph compared it to baseball’s Chicago Black Sox match fixing affair.

Inside the Storm changerooms, the response was shock and disbelief.

Before the public announcement, Craig Bellamy was given the job of informing the playing group. According to journalist Paul Kennedy’s book ‘Storm Cloud’, Bellamy wasn’t up to it: “The coach, dripping a few sentences, began crying and could not finish. (Frank) Ponissi stepped in and completed the task. Some players (including Cameron Smith) broke down. Perhaps the worst thing was seeing Bellamy so crushed.”

And then the encroaching menace from outside.

It was the response from the media and opposition clubs, players and fans. Some of it was measured, but mostly it was zealous and hysterical.

Fairfax was understandably keen to savour the opportunity to criticise a team owned by their main competitor. Worse though, was the response from their owner. Immediately after Gallop’s grim sentencing, News Ltd.’s executive chairman John Hartigan was quick to condemn the “rats in the ranks” and stress his non involvement in the scam and his revulsion at what had taken place (“I feel sick in the stomach”).

Israel Folau at the Storm in 2007. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

There’s no doubt the brutality of the punishment meted out to the Storm was partly fuelled by revenge and resentment for their unexpected unbelievable and enviable achievements. Also, the excellence of their deception was embarrassing for the NRL.

The sanctions were supported and vociferously defended by all club bosses at the time, out of anger and moral outrage, no doubt, but probably also out of relief that the Storm’s dominance over them wasn’t a result of greater professionalism, recruitment, coaching and team bonding.

Some opposition supporters hoped that it meant the end of the club. “Let’s face it, Melbourne Storm are a failed experiment that burnt brightly for a brief time due to success achieved through illegal means”, one confidently remarked.

Anger towards teams involved in cheating is normal and understandable.

But here was an overreach of revulsion – not seen before or since in response to other clubs’ major breaches – common in the early stages of a revolution.

In his autobiography Cameron Smith described the treatment given to the players at away games: “It was abuse I never thought was possible at a rugby league game. You always expect banter but this was on another level.”

Arriving at grounds, they were confronted with crowds resembling the cast from a Federico Fellini movie. Faces – distorted with rage – spat on them, young children mimicked their parents’ verbal obscenities.

They famously had money thrown at them by fans in Canberra. At the return match at AAMI Park I was sitting next to a group of young vocal Raiders fans who had the audacity – and courage, I suppose, considering they were in enemy territory – to hold a sign with ‘cheaters’ in large letters. I leant over and mentioned their club was the first major rorter of the NRL salary cap. They were a little taken aback, possibly unaware of the fact. They watched the rest of the match in relative silence.

It’s obvious that Storm’s brutal punishment did not fulfil its primary function of deterring others from cheating.

The most intriguing and ironic case is that of Cronulla in 2019. They were found to have been orchestrating illegal payments between 2014 and 2017, including 2016 when they beat Melbourne, of all teams, to win the premiership. It was also found that a company had been established in 2017 to ‘ramp up’ illegal third party payments. Bizarrely, despite all this, they were allegedly below the cap in 2016 so the NRL decided not to strip them of the title.

Former Melbourne captain Cameron Smith. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

I think the decision to move on quickly and avoid the sort of extensive audit the Storm received was based on the knowledge that to remove Cronulla’s premiership would have been catastrophic. This was a fairy tale that had to remain real for struggling clubs and the NRL.

Certainly the conciliatory approach by Todd Greenberg towards those Sydney clubs – such as negotiating punishments, discounting fines for partial disclosure and even expressing sympathy for the clubs and players – has further fortified the Storm players in their desire to recognise the ’07 and ’09 titles that have been asterisked, liquid papered out, deleted from the digital record. They return for heartfelt anniversary celebrations and ignore the criticism.

The following year Gallop presented the Storm with the J.J. Giltinan Shield in Melbourne. He was booed vociferously by the crowd emboldened by the belief that the minor premiership was proof that the rorting hadn’t been the reason for the club’s success.

So, what have we learned from the madness of 2010 and since? Perhaps that rorting is inevitable.

The middle aged protagonist of a Philip Roth novel, who was contemplating the inevitable loss of his younger lover, says: ” A young man will find her and take her away. And from me, who fired up her senses, who gave her her stature, who was the catalyst to her emancipation and prepared her for him”.

It’s the nagging fear and feeling of resentment felt by those clubs who identify and develop young talent which become recruitment targets for those who have, as Norman Mailer would describe, “an aristocratic indifference to the development of talent enjoyed what was in flower, but left the planting to others”.

It was the reason Brian Waldron gave for Melbourne’s salary cap breaches. It wasn’t an excuse, of course, but it illuminated the forces behind the impulse to rort.

Businessman Paul Stoddart expressed it perfectly when reflecting on his F1 Minardi team’s performance at the 2002 Melbourne Grand Prix: “No question, the happiest time of my life. I’ve sold businesses for a lot of money. NOTHING touches that Sunday in March, 2002.”

Sport is about winning. It’s an exhilarating and powerful feeling not always compatible with – or respectful of – the socialist concept of the salary cap.

What was most significant though about ’22/4′ were the dark unsettling feelings sport is capable of unleashing. They’re not apparent on the tv coverage with its focus on happy families and sterilising the sound of the crowd to favour the commentators’ voices.

They’re feelings I’m not always aware I have, and when they come I’m not always capable of fully suppressing them.

I’ll leave the description in the hands of the late Martin Amis: “A mass hysteria comes over you and I’m invaded by the emotions of religion and war. I hate the opponents and I love my team. It’s shameful that that’s real”.