NRL probe looks into Sharks cap spending
CRONULLA’S premiership campaign has been rocked by revelations the NRL’s Integrity Unit is investigating the club for potential salary cap breaches on the eve of the finals series.
Integrity Unit forensic investigators arrived at Sharks Leagues Club three months ago after the club’s new chief executive Barry Russell conducted an internal review and found suspicious payments dating back to 2015. He reported it to the NRL.
It is believed the amount involved is about $250,000 but could go higher once thousands of documents have been examined.
One Sharks official said: “Now they’ve taken our server, we don’t know what they’ll find.”
The NRL is confident the club is salary-cap compliant this year and the team – in fourth place on the ladder with one regular season round left – can play in the finals.
Investigators have scanned computer hard drives and seized five years of emails from the club’s internet server plus mobile phone records of officials and staff.
This is the same procedure the Integrity Unit used when investigating Parramatta and Manly in the more recent salary cap scandals.
“We conducted a full governance review when I first started in March,” Russell said.
“We discovered some historical cap issues in relation to third-party payments.
“We self-declared to the NRL and have since been working with the integrity unit in an ongoing investigation.
“We cannot tolerate anything that’s done against NRL guidelines. Importantly for the 2018 season we are cap compliant.”
The original tip-off may have involved an undisclosed third-party payment to a player as far back as 2015. That player is still at the club.
NRL sources said a payment outside the salary cap had been confirmed from 2015 but was not significant enough to strip the Sharks of their 2016 premiership – the club’s first in 50 years.
Players’ values soared on the back of the Sharks winning the title.