Strange how this comes out just when there's a Union team launching in Melbourne and the CEO of said Union team held the same position at the Storm.

Not condoning what the Storm have done but there's 11 pages on this thread on the getting a few digs in at other clubs.

What's that saying about divide & conquer

So you don't think that the players who had signed duplicate contracts were in on it? How stupid do you think they are? Do you think they were sat there wondering why they were being paid more than the contract they had signed said they should have been?

You're incredibly defensive when you think someone is having a go at Wigan, even though this is about Melbourne, but you saying that the very players that were being paid more than they were declaring didn't know about the situation is frankly laughable.

Matt King has been on Radio Manchester tonight and said he knew nothing of the deals. When asked how he thought Melbourne had amassed such an array of talent he replied that players like Felou (sp) and others had been allowed to leave for salary cap reasons. He also stated that many of the players were not on big money and that they had come initially from their feeder club in Brisbane. "The players do not know each other salaries".

In that case a player could have a salary of $500K Aus which could be made up of two parts $300k (declared by the club) and $200K from the "hidden" account.
All the player would know was that he getting $500K. I don't know if it could be done that way.

How that works tax wise I'm not sure.

No doubt it will all come out in the aftermath.

That's the way I thought it would work, if its true that the players didn't know. Each of the big earners would probably just assume they were the highest paid at the club and wouldn't ever discuss it between each other would they.

Surely though, when auditing the cap, why don't they ask the players what they are getting paid? They would have stated the amount bigger than that declared, so surely they would have spotted it within the last 4 years?

rlJail terms may await Storm scam's architectsrl

rlGallop adamant NRL can survive Storm scandalrl

This story is going to get a lot more messy as it goes along methinks

What are you, an RSS feed?

The players may not know which of the others is involved, however they'd know if they were themselves. I can't see such a scam being put at risk by the simple question to a player of 'How much do you earn?'

I think it's the thing about 'the coaching staff' that really made me laugh. But then, if I was a Saints fan, I'd be living in hope at the moment as well.

Quote from Brian Waldron


"Half an hour before David Gallop opened his press conference and revealed the full extent of Storm's salary cap rorting yesterday, a panicking Waldron told me[name withheld] leaving us and getting paid $200,000 by [sponsor withheld] outside the cap by the [team name withheld].

"This is a joke. All clubs do it. I can't say any more."


I hope for the integrity of the game int his country that he is not referring to an English club.

I have not read all 11 pages but for me what this shows is clubs will try and circumvent a salary cap in any way they can.

Is anyone in this country naive enough to think our clubs are not trying to do the same thing?

Wigan tried to do it by employing the deferred contracts route which was allowed in the NRL so thought it was a legitimate way to do it in SL so did it above board. It was then ruled against the spirit of the cap which is just a catch-all phrase which means "make it up as you go along".

So what's the betting other clubs have tried other ways to maximise what they pay to players?

I am not condoning what the Storm have done but rather flagging up the fact a salary cap results IMO in clubs agreeing in principle but then trying to their best to get around it in practice.

Dave

Hasnt Matt King got a tattoo about the Storm 2007 team or something according to Mather Twitter or am I making things up there?