http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...s/news-story/900b31f856bab1d2bcdcb011ea634f2e
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Penn is disappointed Manly have been compared to previous cap breaches from Parramatta (2016) and Melbourne (2010). He said the Sea Eagles did not have the finances to pay players outside the salary cap.
“It’s incredibly frustrating,” he said.
“But the important thing is that we are not aware of anything and we continue to be dragged into the systemic third-party agreement issues of the Eels and Storm, which we couldn’t be further away from.
“We do not have many third-party agreements and as a club we have strong financial backing from the owners, but we don’t have the financial resources to be paying people outside the cap.
“It’s a very different environment.
“I think our frustration is that we continue to get mislabelled in an environment where we don’t get a significant contribution from our leagues club, we don’t have a development fund or other things that is seemingly how people have got around these things in the past.”
Penn also claims allegations of breaching the salary cap could be the result of confusion around third-party agreements and the marquee player allowance.
Third-party agreements are payments made by companies directly to players, but they must be registered and approved to avoid clubs or players using sponsors to undermine the salary cap.
“There seems to also be significant confusion around MPAs and TPAs,” he said.
“MPAs a club is allowed to guarantee and we have some of those and every club is allowed to guarantee up to $600,000 in MPAs.
“So it could merely be a terminology issue that someone has used the wrong terminology when they’ve been talking to someone else.
“So if there is someone who has given information to the NRL, it would literally be as a simple as a missed definition.
“That’s the other thing that we just don’t know and it’s why we will comply with the investigation.”