Parramatta Eels salary cap scandal: The real tragedy is that it didn't have to come to this
Date
May 2, 2016 - 4:35PM
Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer, The Sydney Morning Herald
Two months ago, a highly placed NRL official said this to me as the first crack appeared in Parramatta's salary cap scandal: "We won't be deducting any points. We'd rather see them reformed."
At lunchtime on Tuesday, NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg and Integrity Unit boss Nick Weeks will front a packed media conference and unleash sanctions that are expected to end Parramatta's season.
Eels chairman Steve Sharp and his board will have received the fateful phone call earlier that morning. A massive fine and hefty deduction of competition points that will stop the Eels' campaign in its tracks is expected, although the NRL remains tight-lipped about just how many points could be deducted.
The real tragedy won't be the fact coach Brad Arthur has assembled a team and built a culture finally worthy of the Parramatta brand – although that's heartbreaking, too – but that his superiors could have avoided the pain they're about to endure.
That is what's at the heart of this mess. That's what has angered head office so much.
Time and time again, it has asked the Eels for transparency and co-operation.
Having narrowly avoided a four-point deduction because of last year's salary cap breaches, the smart play from Parramatta would have been to throw themselves at the mercy of the court and limit the damage.
Instead, the board has ducked and weaved and issued knee-jerk media releases full of legal babble about not being afforded "natural justice and procedural fairness".
Last month, Jack Whelan was parachuted into Parramatta straight out of the Australian Labor Party's hard right. He was an adviser to former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and is renowned for his ability to rattle up a speech.
Yes, just what rugby league needs – another politician.
Since then, whenever a story has broken about Parramatta's chaotic salary cap, Sharp and his minders fire out a media release branding it a "smear campaign" and part of a clandestine bid to privatise the club.
The latest desperate play from Sharp came on Sunday when he promised to march the NRL up the stairs of the Supreme Court if the sanctions are too heavy. He issued the same warning in February.
Unsurprisingly, the NRL was hardly shaking in its Dunlop Volleys when contacted on Monday about the threat. It has lawyers, too. Weeks is one of them.
The NRL has also been savvy enough to wait until the representative round to hand down its findings.
With no club football this weekend, it will allow Arthur and his players time to digest that they will be playing only for pride for the rest of this season.
The media conference will make for compelling viewing as Weeks finally explains the depth of the Eels' alleged rorting.
This has been a salary cap scandal like no other; certainly not like the other three the game has suffered in the last 14 years.
In 2002, the Bulldogs lost 37 points and were fined $500,000 after a Herald investigation unearthed secret payments outside of the cap worth $2.13 million over three years. The story came out of nowhere and felt like a kidney punch.
In 2005, the Warriors were fined $400,000 and ordered to start the following season on minus four competition points for exceeding the cap by $1.1 million over two years. Again, nobody really saw it coming.
In 2010, the first inkling that the Storm were in trouble came early one April morning when betting agencies shut down betting on the wooden spoon.
Later that day, then chief executive David Gallop fronted a hastily convened media conference to announce the Storm had been stripped of titles, points and heavily fined for rorting the cap by almost $4 million over five years.
In 2016, the Eels' salary cap scandal has been played out in reverse, with every ugly detail leaked to the media from ugly factions outside the club that refuse to let go.
Weeks will be able to tell us once and for all just how third-party agreements to a range of players amounted to cheating.
As I've been told all along, the issue hasn't been as much about the amount that's outside the cap – about $500,000 some have predicted – but the deceit that's occurred in covering it up.
Equally interesting will be who is exposed as the chief architects of the cheating. To borrow a line from former News Ltd boss John Hartigan when talking about the Storm – who were owned by the media company – who are the rats in the ranks?
If possible, the NRL needs to reveal who has been responsible. Personal breaches of Eels officials and directors would not surprise.
The cruellest blow, of course, for long-suffering Parramatta fans is that their season is about to be strangled at the exact moment they have been delivered a team worthy of their support.
The win over the Bulldogs last Friday night – less than 48 hours after captain Kieran Foran was granted indefinite leave because of serious personal issues – was arguably their greatest since 2009 when they reached the grand final.
When Arthur arrived at the Eels in 2014, there was much debate about how successful he would be.
Having worked alongside Craig Bellamy in Melbourne, he came with the reputation of being almost impossible to play under. He was, according to Storm players, a nightmare.
Like fellow Bellamy disciple Michael Maguire, he would turn up at wrestling sessions and join in.
One former Eels player under Arthur tells the story about the day he smiled at a training session.
"What are you smiling about?" Arthur apparently asked. "There's nothing to be happy about."
That authoritarian style seemed to explain why the Eels failed to reach the finals in his first two seasons.
But credit where it is due. He ushered players out the door and brought in new ones. He pissed people off but he made Parramatta Parramatta again.
Arthur is the club's future – or at least what's left of it after lunchtime on Tuesday.
Those who are found to be responsible for the catastrophe the club is about to experience should never be allowed near the joint again.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/...me-to-this-20160502-gok1q2.html#ixzz47UlTgrmV
