Broncoman
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Bought a copy today I know I went to Sunnybank hills for a reason.
Big Pete
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Former Melbourne Storm CEO Brian Waldron speaks out on salary cap saga
Former Melbourne Storm chief executive Brian Waldron has blamed rigid NRL salary cap laws under former league boss David Gallop for forcing his hand in cheating the cap.
The NRL stripped the Storm of its 2007 and 2009 premierships and forced the club to play for no points in 2010 after it self-reported paying players outside the cap.
Waldron had left the club to lead Super Rugby club Melbourne Rebels when the club reported itself in 2010, he soon resigned from the Rebels.
Storm players and coach Craig Bellamy make their defiant walk to waiting media after the scandal broke. Photo: Paul Rovere
Waldron spoke publicly about his role in the scandal on SEN 1116 radio station on Wednesday morning and admitted he was to blame but said the figures quoted by the NRL were wrong and the league's rigid management at the time created conditions that led to the cheating.
He said the cheating started after the NRL and then chief executive Gallop reneged on a deal to create a "game development" fund from Australian Rugby League money to pay Storm players additional money to develop the game in Victoria.
"We ran a business that had a dual charter that you try to grow the game and build the Storm," Waldron said.
Former NRL chief executive David Gallop has been accused by Waldron of putting the Storm in the position that forced it to cheat. Photo: Getty Images
"We wanted to be successful for ourselves and successful for the NRL - we were a flagship just like the Swans were in Sydney (for the AFL).
"So we set up these programs and rugby league at the time has these two bodies, they had the ARL who were in game development and the NRL who ran the competition.
"We struck a deal with the NRL, I felt, with David Gallop [then NRL CEO] that we would organise to have a game development fund through the ARL.
Storm fans make their opinion of Waldron known in 2010. Photo: Paul Rovere
"We would get some money out of that to pay players to grow the game down here, so we did some contracts with players to do that."
But Waldron said Gallop and NRL salary cap auditors nixed the deal after one year despite the Storm having signed contracts with several players to pay them from the fund.
"At the end of the first year we paid the players some of that money then we were told by the NRL salary cap auditor that we weren't allowed to do that," Waldron said.
"So we said 'hold on, we have already agreed to do that and had contracts and payments agreed with players'.
"But we got overruled and in David's mind the salary cap auditor had absolute discretion so we had to say if we can't do that then we have to make some alterations to contracts moving forward.
"The salary cap auditor then said we can't do that and we said 'why not?' and he said because you have made these commitments to players for next year and we won't let you vary that.
"All you can do is do new contracts."
Waldron also repeated claims he believed several other clubs were cheating the cap and he had urged Gallop to host a moratorium for clubs to openly declare cap cheating and bring their payments into line with league rules over a course of years.
"I did ring David one day and I said you have a problem and you need a moratorium," Waldron said.
" ... I remember David said to me 'we can't have a moratorium because that would be admitting we have a problem'."
Waldron also said no Storm players knew their payments were outside the cap and there was not "two sets of books" as was widely reported at the time.
"They were rightly exonerated - it's not their job to lodge documents or manage the salary cap, it's their job to play the game," Waldron said.
"They have contracts put in front of them and they have every right to expect that they are within the rules of the game.
"We didn't run two sets of books, at the time our finance manager was CFO of News Ltd - we weren't that big an organisation.
"From my understanding there was never a second set of books found, what was handed to the salary cap auditor was a variation of contracts - there was certain contracts or arrangements organised with players and they were different to what was lodged with the NRL.
"That's not unusual but normally needs to be explained - at the end of the day it was for the greater good that this took place."
Waldron has come out of his self-imposed media silence a couple of times in recent years to do private speaking engagements or write columns on his career.
He said he had decided to speak out now his oldest child had finished school.
He has made it clear he believed after five years out of sport he is ready to return should someone want to hire him.
Waldron said the NRL's "northern markets" had dictated the rigid interpretations of salary cap rules and forced him to get creative with how he paid the players their agreed money.
"In the game I came from, the AFL, they did everything in their power to assist you to manage the salary cap where as the NRL, we weren't liked at the time because the game was very heavily controlled by the northern markets," Waldron said.
"They didn't allow us to do that and that was their way.
"So then we had these commitments to players and we chose to make payments to players outside of the cap.
"That was the wrong thing to do and we should have fought that fight publicly, that would have been the smarter thing to do."
Without quoting figures or monetary differences, Waldron also claimed the NRL publicly gave "false figures" about the extent of the Storm's cheating.
He also said the Storm did not win its two premierships because of salary cap cheating, an argument other NRL people would challenge due to the talent the club kept on its list.
"From there it steamrolled and I have to say the levels they said we breached the cap by were false," Waldron said.
"I know the truth, we breached the cap.
"Did we go through at 150 miles an hour or 75 miles an hour in a 60 zone, that's really relevant to the fact we breached the cap."
Waldron also blamed the NRL's management structure at the time as they didn't have an independent commission and still had clubs like the Storm and Brisbane Broncos who were owned by News Limited as a holdover from the ARL and Super League wars of the 1990s.
"I remember speaking to David Gallop after we won our first premiership [2007] and he said to me 'you can't win another one, they will kill me up here'," Waldron said.
"David is a great administrator but they were enormous pressures, the game of rugby league at the time didn't want Melbourne to be successful."
Waldron told listeners he would be appearing on SEN again next week but it wasn't declared whether or not he was paid for his appearances.
http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/former-melbourne-storm-ceo-brian-waldron-speaks-out-on-salary-cap-saga-20150128-12zzqu.html
Former Melbourne Storm chief executive Brian Waldron has blamed rigid NRL salary cap laws under former league boss David Gallop for forcing his hand in cheating the cap.
The NRL stripped the Storm of its 2007 and 2009 premierships and forced the club to play for no points in 2010 after it self-reported paying players outside the cap.
Waldron had left the club to lead Super Rugby club Melbourne Rebels when the club reported itself in 2010, he soon resigned from the Rebels.
Waldron spoke publicly about his role in the scandal on SEN 1116 radio station on Wednesday morning and admitted he was to blame but said the figures quoted by the NRL were wrong and the league's rigid management at the time created conditions that led to the cheating.
He said the cheating started after the NRL and then chief executive Gallop reneged on a deal to create a "game development" fund from Australian Rugby League money to pay Storm players additional money to develop the game in Victoria.
"We ran a business that had a dual charter that you try to grow the game and build the Storm," Waldron said.
"We wanted to be successful for ourselves and successful for the NRL - we were a flagship just like the Swans were in Sydney (for the AFL).
"So we set up these programs and rugby league at the time has these two bodies, they had the ARL who were in game development and the NRL who ran the competition.
"We struck a deal with the NRL, I felt, with David Gallop [then NRL CEO] that we would organise to have a game development fund through the ARL.
"We would get some money out of that to pay players to grow the game down here, so we did some contracts with players to do that."
But Waldron said Gallop and NRL salary cap auditors nixed the deal after one year despite the Storm having signed contracts with several players to pay them from the fund.
"At the end of the first year we paid the players some of that money then we were told by the NRL salary cap auditor that we weren't allowed to do that," Waldron said.
"So we said 'hold on, we have already agreed to do that and had contracts and payments agreed with players'.
"But we got overruled and in David's mind the salary cap auditor had absolute discretion so we had to say if we can't do that then we have to make some alterations to contracts moving forward.
"The salary cap auditor then said we can't do that and we said 'why not?' and he said because you have made these commitments to players for next year and we won't let you vary that.
"All you can do is do new contracts."
Waldron also repeated claims he believed several other clubs were cheating the cap and he had urged Gallop to host a moratorium for clubs to openly declare cap cheating and bring their payments into line with league rules over a course of years.
"I did ring David one day and I said you have a problem and you need a moratorium," Waldron said.
" ... I remember David said to me 'we can't have a moratorium because that would be admitting we have a problem'."
Waldron also said no Storm players knew their payments were outside the cap and there was not "two sets of books" as was widely reported at the time.
"They were rightly exonerated - it's not their job to lodge documents or manage the salary cap, it's their job to play the game," Waldron said.
"They have contracts put in front of them and they have every right to expect that they are within the rules of the game.
"We didn't run two sets of books, at the time our finance manager was CFO of News Ltd - we weren't that big an organisation.
"From my understanding there was never a second set of books found, what was handed to the salary cap auditor was a variation of contracts - there was certain contracts or arrangements organised with players and they were different to what was lodged with the NRL.
"That's not unusual but normally needs to be explained - at the end of the day it was for the greater good that this took place."
Waldron has come out of his self-imposed media silence a couple of times in recent years to do private speaking engagements or write columns on his career.
He said he had decided to speak out now his oldest child had finished school.
He has made it clear he believed after five years out of sport he is ready to return should someone want to hire him.
Waldron said the NRL's "northern markets" had dictated the rigid interpretations of salary cap rules and forced him to get creative with how he paid the players their agreed money.
"In the game I came from, the AFL, they did everything in their power to assist you to manage the salary cap where as the NRL, we weren't liked at the time because the game was very heavily controlled by the northern markets," Waldron said.
"They didn't allow us to do that and that was their way.
"So then we had these commitments to players and we chose to make payments to players outside of the cap.
"That was the wrong thing to do and we should have fought that fight publicly, that would have been the smarter thing to do."
Without quoting figures or monetary differences, Waldron also claimed the NRL publicly gave "false figures" about the extent of the Storm's cheating.
He also said the Storm did not win its two premierships because of salary cap cheating, an argument other NRL people would challenge due to the talent the club kept on its list.
"From there it steamrolled and I have to say the levels they said we breached the cap by were false," Waldron said.
"I know the truth, we breached the cap.
"Did we go through at 150 miles an hour or 75 miles an hour in a 60 zone, that's really relevant to the fact we breached the cap."
Waldron also blamed the NRL's management structure at the time as they didn't have an independent commission and still had clubs like the Storm and Brisbane Broncos who were owned by News Limited as a holdover from the ARL and Super League wars of the 1990s.
"I remember speaking to David Gallop after we won our first premiership [2007] and he said to me 'you can't win another one, they will kill me up here'," Waldron said.
"David is a great administrator but they were enormous pressures, the game of rugby league at the time didn't want Melbourne to be successful."
Waldron told listeners he would be appearing on SEN again next week but it wasn't declared whether or not he was paid for his appearances.
http://www.theage.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/former-melbourne-storm-ceo-brian-waldron-speaks-out-on-salary-cap-saga-20150128-12zzqu.html
broncos4life
International Captain
Forum Staff
- Oct 5, 2011
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They forced us to cheat... right.
Porthoz
International Captain
Senior Staff
- Feb 27, 2010
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"He made me do it!"
:hurt:
:hurt:
gordjw
NRL Player
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I have no idea if his claims are true, but I have no difficulty picturing the NRL/ARL being so incompetent and inconsistent that they created a situation like the one he describes.
I'm also 100% sure that other clubs are cheating the same or worse than the storm ever did, but are perhaps smarter/more experienced at it.
I'm also 100% sure that other clubs are cheating the same or worse than the storm ever did, but are perhaps smarter/more experienced at it.
Anonymous person
Banned User
- Dec 16, 2008
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- #114
sounds pretty believable to me. The NRL are a bunch of morons, they have proven that time and time again.
Super Freak
International Captain
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The NRL administration may be incompetent, but that's no excuse for cheating the cap.
Nashy
Immortal
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If the limited detail in the above article is accurate, it's possible they did help cause it.
Like he said though, they should have gone public, not willingly cheated.
Anonymous person
Banned User
- Dec 16, 2008
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- #117
If what he says is true, the NRL gave the Storm permission to sign players with extra money outside the salary cap because they were trying to make melbourne NRL territory, but then after one year, after contracts had already been signed, they went back and said "ok you can't do that any more, but you also have to honor the player contracts that have already been signed for the higher amount", and basically left the storm and their contracts up the creek without a paddle. They basically just said well we're going to keep doing it and away they went.
I have no doubt believing that it could have happened like that. The NRL is/was run by a bunch of muppets who have no idea what theyre doing.
Bucking Beads
International Captain
- Mar 5, 2008
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The Storm are in no way to blame for cheating their Salary Cap. They've been robbed of several premierships because of the incompetence of the NRL administration.
Cult
International Rep
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As if. If the NRL were that corrupt the Melbourne Storm or those involved wouldn't have waited until 2015 to say anything.
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Harry Sack
International Rep
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Exactly. Every other fucking thing in this sport seems to be judged in the public eye, why not this.
Harry Sack
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...and I call bullshit. Even considering that the NRL are that incompetent.....were the Storm board that incompetent that they would have taken that lying down? "Hey guys, instead of going public with this story, lets just cheat the cap" Bullshit.
Even if that did happen.....in 2010 when the shit hit the fan, surely some bright spark in the boardroom would have said something about what had transpired? There's a whistle blower that can blab about the Storm cheating the cap, but there isn't some guy who'll blab about a "plausible" explanation? Please.
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broncos4life
International Captain
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That's just untrue.
Morkel
International Captain
Contributor
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For one thing, it's clear that Waldron wants a new job, and is trying to appear as the sort of bloke who'll take a hit for his team. Problem is, it's 5 years too late, so anything he says will be calculated in the interests of repairing his public image. I believe nothing he says.
Also, there was nothing mentioned about this so-called development money being able to go to the players as a cap-free bonus. With new teams like the Gold Coast receiving little to no help in that regard, why would the NRL offer it to a mostly established club? It's just as likely that the money was going to be granted to the club to be used to bolster their advertising and media visibility down there, but someone at the Storm decided to siphon some of that off to keep the players' salaries topped up. That, and one more fact - he says that there were existing contracts that needed to be honored. Where does that leave Inglis' new contract? A new contract would mean exactly that - a new contract, no cap-free NRL supplement payments to honor. If the negotiations happened after the NRL pulled the pin on the payments, then the Storm did that of their own free will, not because they were obliged to by the NRL. And if the negotiations happened before, then where does the free boat come in to it?
Too many holes in his story to trust anything he's said. It's all spin, in an attempt to resurrect his career, it doesn't change my views on him, the coach, or the players one bit.
Also, there was nothing mentioned about this so-called development money being able to go to the players as a cap-free bonus. With new teams like the Gold Coast receiving little to no help in that regard, why would the NRL offer it to a mostly established club? It's just as likely that the money was going to be granted to the club to be used to bolster their advertising and media visibility down there, but someone at the Storm decided to siphon some of that off to keep the players' salaries topped up. That, and one more fact - he says that there were existing contracts that needed to be honored. Where does that leave Inglis' new contract? A new contract would mean exactly that - a new contract, no cap-free NRL supplement payments to honor. If the negotiations happened after the NRL pulled the pin on the payments, then the Storm did that of their own free will, not because they were obliged to by the NRL. And if the negotiations happened before, then where does the free boat come in to it?
Too many holes in his story to trust anything he's said. It's all spin, in an attempt to resurrect his career, it doesn't change my views on him, the coach, or the players one bit.
Porthoz
International Captain
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- Feb 27, 2010
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I'm firmly in the "I don't believe a word coming out of Waldron's mouth" camp, and 100% agree with Morkel's post above.
This is no different campaigning than what we're seeing up here for the State's elections, except it's for a job in sports administration.
If only he hadn't done this in the NRL, he might have a chance at a spot there...
This is no different campaigning than what we're seeing up here for the State's elections, except it's for a job in sports administration.
If only he hadn't done this in the NRL, he might have a chance at a spot there...
john1420
It's Bronco Time
Contributor
- Aug 27, 2008
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I've been in a comparable situation before, and by that I mean as part of my role doing compliance, the Government department that we are audited by gave me 2 instructions several months apart, that were mutually exclusive
I handled that by telling them their 2 directions were mutually exclusive and how would they like me to proceed, and put it in writing please
In other words, I handled it like a grown up
I handled that by telling them their 2 directions were mutually exclusive and how would they like me to proceed, and put it in writing please
In other words, I handled it like a grown up
Anonymous person
Banned User
- Dec 16, 2008
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- #126
Before people carry on about how not even the nrl is that incompetently run, lets not forget that they just let a performance enhancing drug scandal involving multiple teams and dozens of players take almost 2 years to come to a conclusion, and then, even after getting an admiral of drug use by the players, handed them an effective 3 week suspension and allowed one of them to retain his state of origin captain status and player of the series awards.
They are a bunch of idiotic, bumbling buffoons. Waldron might be full of shit, but the nrl is probably the most incompetently run and managed big professional sport organization in the world. The nrl should be 10x bigger than it is at the very least, and under real leadership it would be the dominant sport in Australia IMO.
They are a bunch of idiotic, bumbling buffoons. Waldron might be full of shit, but the nrl is probably the most incompetently run and managed big professional sport organization in the world. The nrl should be 10x bigger than it is at the very least, and under real leadership it would be the dominant sport in Australia IMO.
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