Melbourne stripped of NRL titles
Melbourne Storm have been stripped of two championships in Australia's National Rugby League for breaching the competition's strict salary cap rules.
The Victorian club were found to have spent A$1.6m (£960,541) over the set limit over the course of five years.
The Storm have been fined A$500,000 (£300,000) and forced to return the A$1.1m (£660,200) prize money they took for winning the 2007 and 2009 titles.
The club will accumulate no points for the entire 2010 NRL season.
The Australian Rugby League also removed three minor premierships - the titles for finishing top of the lucrative National Rugby League after the end of the regular season - between 2006 and 2008.
However, the NRL does not operate a promotion-relegation system, so Melbourne will still be able to participate in next season's competition.
The ruling was the severest punishment administered in NRL history.
Each of the 16 teams in the NRL must not exceed a A$4.4m (£2.645m) salary cap set by the league, which employs a special audit team to monitor the finances of each club.
The investigations into Storm's accounts revealed the club maintained a dual contract system whereby promises of extra payments were kept separate and clandestine from the club's owners, News Ltd, and its board members.
"While the amount itself is cause for concern, the most damning indictment is the systematic attempt by persons within the club to conceal payments from the salary cap auditor and, it would now seem certain from the club's board and from its owners, on an on-going basis," said NRL chief executive David Gallop.
"It was through this system that they were able to attract and retain some of the biggest names in rugby league.
"In doing so they have let down the game, the players and the fans of the Melbourne Storm.
"Clearly there were some individuals who knew what was going on and perhaps many who did not.
"By nature, that means innocent parties will suffer as a result of this punishment but the persons responsible are those who constructed the scheme and anyone who knowingly signed a false statutory declaration to deceive the game.
"It would be unfair now on the players and fans of every other club in the competition to allow the Storm to enter this year's finals series or to retain the titles they won.
"As a game we will do all we can to restore the faith of each of those parties but there is no alternative now but to deal with the situation that has been so deliberately engineered."
News Limited chief executive John Hartigan said the company had referred the matter to police. "This club has had a couple of rats in its ranks," he added.
Melbourne joined the NRL in 1998 and quickly became a force outside of the game's traditional heartlands of New South Wales and Queensland.
They won their first grand final in 2007 before following that up with their second title in three years last season before defeating Super League champions Leeds 18-10 in the World Club Challenge at Elland Road in February.
The club been in fourth place in this season's ladder with four victory and two defeats after six matches before the NRL's unprecedented ruling.
"Today is a most unbelievable blow and this is the lowest day in the club's history," said Storm chairman Rod Moodie.
"On behalf of the Melbourne Storm I would like to sincerely apologise to our players, our staff, our sponsors, our members and our supporters, and we will continue to assist the NRL with their investigation.
"We will absolutely endeavour to return this club back to the great heights where it deserves to be."
Neither Manly nor Parramatta, who were beaten by Melbourne in the 2007 and 2009 grand finals respectively, will assume the Storm's stripped titles.
Instead, those years will remain blank in the NRL's history books.
Canterbury Bulldogs were docked 37 points and fined A$500,000 in 2002 for salary cap breaches, while New Zealand Warriors had four points removed for a similar offence in 2006.
Story from BBC SPORT:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/sport2 ... 636565.stm
Published: 2010/04/22 07:17:57 GMT
Storm stripped
Storm stripped
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Storm stripped
Naughty, naughty.
There is a reason there is a salary cap. Could breaching that reason be the reason for your success in those years?
Suck it up Storm.
x lots.
There is a reason there is a salary cap. Could breaching that reason be the reason for your success in those years?
Suck it up Storm.
x lots.Bah!
