Can NRL shelter from the Storm?

Salary rorts at the Storm should not just concern NRL fans. There are big questions to be asked about the ownership and management of sport in Australia, writes JASON WILSON

IN an article I wrote last month about the Melbourne Storm, I asked questions about the club’s long-term viability in view of its precarious financial position, and News Ltd’s apparent enthusiasm to cease being its owner/operator.
As I wrote then: Far from turning a profit, it has been consistently reported that they cost their owners around A$6 million a year to keep afloat (although this remains conjecture, as the finances of the club are not directly available to the public). That is more than the amount of the player salary cap (currently at A$4.4 million).
As of last week, the whole country knows that the figures at the Storm did not add up.
Melbourne’s systematic rorting of the salary cap has seen them stripped of their last two premierships, and means that they are unable to accumulate any points this year.
With no other club able – or willing – to assume the premierships they illegitimately won, the years 2007 and 2009 are now black holes in the history of the game.
Up until round six, which ended last Monday, the Storm were the league’s most successful, star-studded outfit, even though they had lost the last two rounds.
From round seven – should the club even manage to survive – for seasons to come, they will be pariahs.
A penalty of this scale is unprecedented in Australian sport, but it is hard to say that the punishment does not fit the crime.
David Gallop – a man whose picture should be inserted into the Macquarie’s entry for “long-suffering” – has correctly adjudged that cheats should not only not prosper, but that their achievements should be excised from the history of the game.
The one positive to emerge from this sordid affair is the swift and fearless response from the NRL, who acted so despite the fact that the league’s part owners are also the proprietors of the Storm.
The tawdry details about how the cap was rorted which are now emerging are not only painful for anyone who loves the game, they also suggest that this episode will end in the criminal courts.
Last Friday morning’s Sydney papers carried reports of second sets of bookkeeping, of collusive suppliers overcharging the club and handing surpluses back to players, and of the Storm riding roughshod over the rules on third-party employment.
On this last point, Cameron Smith’s employment at Fox Sports has been offered as an example of the club negotiating a prohibited third-party deal.
There have also been suggestions that envelopes full of cash were handed to marquee players at the club in order that they be kept sweet.
There are many victims here.
Firstly, there are the fans of the club, whose pride in their team’s success has been replaced by shame and anger about an unforgivable level of corruption. They were the ones whose dedication to a league team in unfriendly territory was the faint sign recently that the Storm was making inroads.
And to those players who did not receive off-the-book payments, and who nevertheless worked for the team’s successes, a fair degree of sympathy should be accorded.
For league fans in general, this is yet another incident that means we will need to defend their sport in bars and at barbecues – just at a time when it was looking like the season might be “clean”.
For the NRL, the prospect of having a successful Melbourne club in the short to medium term has been seriously damaged. If a club survives in the long term, it might not be the Storm, whose brand has been tarnished beyond recognition – and maybe beyond redemption.
nJason Wilson is a lecturer in digital communications at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He has published articles on media history, the online public sphere, politics, regional Australia and rugby league. He lives on the NSW south coast