In a few short weeks, the NRL will release their final report in regards to the Storm cap scandal – a report that will detail extensively who was involved and what went on at the club at the time.
With the report set to be made public, NRL Chief Executive David Gallop said that report was nearing its conclusion and is almost complete, with the NRL considering what punishments will have to be handed out as a result.
”Our final report into what happened in Melbourne is with our lawyers at the moment, but should be completed shortly,” Gallop said
”In the next few weeks I hope it will be completed and released. It won’t all be released publicly – I’m not exactly sure just yet how much, that’s in the hands of the lawyers. But we will certainly look at releasing important information publicly.
”The ramifications for a number of people, including player managers, are still an issue. And getting to the bottom of what happened down there has been a complicated process. But it’s a credit to [salary cap auditor] Ian Schubert and his guys that they dug and dug and dug and ended up uncovering some pretty poor practices which were designed to avoid detection by the NRL.”
The document, which consists of more than 100 pages will be even more revealing, and have more content than the report carried out by Deloitte on behalf of News Ltd.
”Contrary to what was said at the time, we never accepted the Deloitte report as our position on the Melbourne Storm,” he said.
”We always wanted to complete our own investigation as to how this all happened, and it’s taken some time to do that …
”We’ve dealt with the part of it that relates to the conduct of player agents, so the rest of it deals with the details of how Melbourne Storm breached the salary cap to the extent that they did – to the massive extent that they did.
”That details the people involved in it.”
”Our view of that was that as we closed in on what was going on in Melbourne, some of that became known to punters and they took a punt on it. But that’s happened regularly when we’ve been involved in a serious salary cap investigation.”
Despite many people still disagreeing, Gallop remains adamant that now allowing the Storm to accrue points in the 2010 season was the right decision, and he stands by it.
”The attacks on the process that we used to arrive on the decision were one of the most disappointing aspects of what happened,” he said.
”The process was very much dictated to by the admissions of their people in charge at the club and their desire to see the issue dealt with quickly. They backflipped on that and chose to blame others rather than themselves for the predicament the club found itself in.”
He did however say that he is pleased to see how well the Storm have bounced back, following their strong showings in their games so far.
”It’s good to see the Storm back playing good football in the new ground that we helped to get built for them,” Gallop said.
”The way they played last year was a credit to them and their commitment to the club. The fact remains that it would have been grossly unfair to the rest of the competition if they had played for points last year. There was no way that they could be fairly put under the cap at that point in the season.”