Is this a Bernie Madoff story of the NRLworld?

[samh004]

Just saw the storm have been stripped of two NRL titles for breaching the salary cap. Also note that News Ltd have been sponsoring them or something so it’s left them in a bad spot?

Pretty big news.

 

[Nigelinoz]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

That's a huge story.
Melbourne Storm | Salary cap
But if they have admitted the breaches and they knew about the penalties that could be imposed then thay have nobody to blame but themselves.

 

[anat0l]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Just saw the storm have been stripped of two NRL titles for breaching the salary cap. Also note that News Ltd have been sponsoring them or something so it’s left them in a bad spot?

Pretty big news.

Is this a Bernie Madoff story of the NRL world?

Obviously the MEL Storm are going to raise hell to get this one overturned. At the least, they must be spitting chips.

Not to mention they are, from now on, going to have no more points added to their competition, essentially condemning them to the wooden spoon by default. Not good.

I wonder what this will do to player morale.

Although in rather unfortunate circumstances, this incident - officially or unofficially - restores the Brisbane Broncos as the team with the most NRL premierships. (Mind you, Brisbane have been fined for salary cap breaches before, but not this significant. This is quite an extreme incident, even compared to the Bulldog's demise in 2002).

EDIT: Just read the SMH article and comments. Seems like there are some that are predicting this is the end of NRL in MEL. Some think it's an anti-Victorian (or anti-MEL) conspiracy. Some think the penalty (stripping of two premierships at the least) is excessive. Some think the salary cap is a stupid idea.

 

[straitman]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Is this a Bernie Madoff story of the NRL world?

Obviously the MEL Storm are going to raise hell to get this one overturned. At the least, they must be spitting chips.

Not to mention they are, from now on, going to have no more points added to their competition, essentially condemning them to the wooden spoon by default. Not good.

I wonder what this will do to player morale.

Although in rather unfortunate circumstances, this incident - officially or unofficially - restores the Brisbane Broncos as the team with the most NRL premierships. (Mind you, Brisbane have been fined for salary cap breaches before, but not this significant. This is quite an extreme incident, even compared to the Bulldog's demise in 2002).

EDIT: Just read the SMH article and comments. Seems like there are some that are predicting this is the end of NRL in MEL. Some think it's an anti-Victorian (or anti-MEL) conspiracy. Some think the penalty (stripping of two premierships at the least) is excessive. Some think the salary cap is a stupid idea.

.... and some think (pick me) that no points for the rest of the season is right over the top. They may as well not even turn up :!:

 

[straitman]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Obviously the MEL Storm are going to raise hell to get this one overturned. At the least, they must be spitting chips.

Not to mention they are, from now on, going to have no more points added to their competition, essentially condemning them to the wooden spoon by default. Not good.

I wonder what this will do to player morale.

Although in rather unfortunate circumstances, this incident - officially or unofficially - restores the Brisbane Broncos as the team with the most NRL premierships. (Mind you, Brisbane have been fined for salary cap breaches before, but not this significant. This is quite an extreme incident, even compared to the Bulldog's demise in 2002).

What was the penalty for the Broncos :?:

 

[anat0l]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

What was the penalty for the Broncos :?:

A few thousand dollars of fines, in the orders of tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions, and no competition points or premierships stripped.

It's happened a couple of times (Melbourne have also had some minor infractions before, with similar penalties), as have a handful of other clubs (old and new).

 

[QF WP]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

I was standing waiting for the ADL QP buffet area to clear and saw this on Sky. See that 7 officials have been sanctioned, but there wasn't any audio.

Big news. The sanctions should hit Management, not the team. The players are not in a position to be aware of the logistics of the cap, whereas Management are. They are there to play football. To not tuen up and play other teams will put as risk the entire competition.

What is the right way to sanction management...hmmmm, another quandry.

Another reason I'm not following NRL any more. Bring on AFL, S14 and AFA

 

[anat0l]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

What is the right way to sanction management...hmmmm, another quandry.

Well, they could put a few of them into jail for fraud (if I read correctly that this flim-flam was an exercise in book cooking).

I believe that's what happened with respect to some of the officials in the big Bulldogs bust of 2002.

 

[samh004]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

.... and some think (pick me) that no points for the rest of the season is right over the top. They may as well not even turn up :!:

I hope they turn up to every match and just score home tries and screw around. Give the NRL something to think about as they “fix” the competition.

 

[RB]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

I was standing waiting for the ADL QP buffet area to
Another reason I'm not following NRL any more. Bring on AFL, S14 and AFA

I suggest that you need to take the blinkers off & consider the well established shortcomings of each of these other codes.( small sample, AFL- coaches apparently branding players as rapists, S14 players sent home from Sth Africa, AFA reasons for coach sackings & sanctions).

 

[serfty]

The 2002 Bulldogs were undefeated with 17 wins and a draw before they were stripped of all points. They went on to win four more games and finished with a total of 8 points.

This was apparently for a nearly $2M 1 year rort.

Storm have been effectively "stripped" of all wins over for 5 years (including this year) for $1.7M.

 

[samh004]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

The 2002 Bulldogs were undefeated with 17 wins and a draw before they were stripped of all points. They went on to win four more games and finished with a total of 8 points.

This was apparently for a nearly $2M 1 year rort.

Storm have been effectively "stripped" of all wins over for 5 years (including this year) for $1.7M.

Really shows some glaring inconsistencies in how the matters were handled.

What a waste.

 

[Bundy Bear]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

The 2002 Bulldogs were undefeated with 17 wins and a draw before they were stripped of all points. They went on to win four more games and finished with a total of 8 points.

This was apparently for a nearly $2M 1 year rort.

Storm have been effectively "stripped" of all wins over for 5 years (including this year) for $1.7M.

Stripping of the points for this year is ok; but to not earn more points this year is a stupid idea.

Returning the $1.1 winnings is a good idea but to get stripped of having their name on the trophy is a stupid idea.

Anyone want to go and watch Melbourne Storm play Auckland Warriors at Etihad Stadium(Docklands Melbourne) 6:00pm 25 April :idea: I wonder how much merchandise will be going cheap.

 

[anat0l]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

I wonder how much merchandise will be going cheap

If you were in MEL right now, you could probably flog a few bits and pieces for nothing.

There's a lot of talk about whether the penalty for the Storm was too harsh or justified. And frankly, there are arguments (valid ones!) on both sides of the fence.

I guess most people are past the point that something wrong was done by the Storm and they need to be punished. At least that is the minimum that seems to be agreed.

I think the Storm will be here for a long time to come; who knows, the NRL may rescind on their decisions. If the Storm leave the NRL, a big part of the NRL will disappear and the game might not get the public support it needs to be a good game. Without the Storm and without effective management of keeping good players, the NRL will die.

Perhaps AFL supporters can start rejoicing (although they also have their share of skeletons in the closet).

 

[oz_mark]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Big news. The sanctions should hit Management, not the team. The players are not in a position to be aware of the logistics of the cap, whereas Management are.

The players were financially rewarded by this - it is hard to believe they would not have known.

 

[samh004]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

The players were financially rewarded by this - it is hard to believe they would not have known.

I think players might have noticed had they received 2 payments for a match instead of 1, but unless every player got together to add it all up, they couldn’t have been sure the cap was being breached.

Unless they were told.

Either way, $2 million over a year compared to $1.7 million over 5 years and worse punishments doesn’t make sense.

 

[anat0l]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Either way, $2 million over a year compared to $1.7 million over 5 years and worse punishments doesn’t make sense.

Where's this $2 million figure for the Bulldog's salary cap breaches coming from? Some searches around the web (quick) and I can only find stories which give the figure at about (or just a bit over) $1 million over 1 year.

One has to consider the time factor independently of the amount that was rorted. Although some think the time it took to "catch" the Storm in this act is a mitigating factor ("if you had caught us 2 years earlier, or 4 years earlier, we would have gotten off the hook with a lot less penalty!")

 

[serfty]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

Where's this $2 million figure for the Bulldog's salary cap breaches coming from? Some searches around the web (quick) and I can only find stories which give the figure at about (or just a bit over) $1 million over 1 year. ...

Depending upon the reference is was "nearly 2 million", "over 1 Million" or "above 1.5 million".

I quoted from a "nearly 2 million" article which listed the many NRL club fines over the last 10 or more years for salary cap breaches.

 

[samh004]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

One has to consider the time factor independently of the amount that was rorted. Although some think the time it took to "catch" the Storm in this act is a mitigating factor ("if you had caught us 2 years earlier, or 4 years earlier, we would have gotten off the hook with a lot less penalty!")

I think time has a lot to do with it, they may have spent more than the Bulldogs did, but they actually spent less per year than the Bulldogs, so on one hand it went on for some length of time, but on the other while it went on, it wasn’t for huge sums of money.

Good job I’m not big into NRL or the Storm I suppose, just seems like they got a raw deal on this one.

 

[drron]

Re: The totally off-topic thread

The 2002 Bulldogs were undefeated with 17 wins and a draw before they were stripped of all points. They went on to win four more games and finished with a total of 8 points.

This was apparently for a nearly $2M 1 year rort.

Storm have been effectively "stripped" of all wins over for 5 years (including this year) for $1.7M.

As was pointed out by the NRL the Storm's transgressions were done in a much more sophisticated way so harder to detect-ie only becauseof a whistyle blower.And were done after all clubs warned by the example of the Bulldogs so a much tougher penalty certainly indicated.
Certainly a hefty fine,return of all prizemoney,stripping of points so far this season I agree with.My feeling is the players still won the premierships not the management so I wouldn't have done that but probably reduced their salary cap for the same time as they had been cheating.
For all those extolling the virtues of other codes-the bloke who appears to have instigated this came from AFL and has gone to Union.
However i really do think the NRL have gone too far-making no points for the rest of this season just makes the comp a farce.And even just by judging from the small number of comments here will basically destroy public support of league in Victoria.