It’s been 10 years since the Parramatta Eels salary cap scandal. This is the anniversary the club wants to forget
Beneath a suburban Sydney shopping centre, under the flickering lights of its car park, money is changing hands.
A star footballer’s rent is due and the official ledger of the club he plays for simply can’t hold it. So the playmaker takes the escalator down from his apartment and accepts a wad of cash, which may or not have been the contents of a brown paper bag.
The man giving it to him, an employee of one of the biggest sporting clubs in town, gives the footballer a sheepish look as they complete the transaction.
“Mate,” he says. “Did you ever think we’d get here and have to do this?”
It reads like a scene from a low-rent crime script. Instead, it’s how business was conducted at the Parramatta Eels a decade ago. Inflated or fictitious invoices. The proceeds of jersey sales going straight into players’ pockets. Cash payments made at Top Ryde car park.
Corey Norman was allegedly the beneficiary of the latter, part of a tangled web of lies that resulted in the Eels rorting the salary cap to the tune of more than $3 million.
The last time Parramatta played Canterbury, they celebrated the 40th anniversary of their last grand final win, back in 1986. As the old rivals prepare to go at it again on the King’s birthday on Monday, it marks 10 years since the blue and golds were busted for systematically rorting the salary cap.
If, indeed, this was a crime caper movie about the disastrous consequences of greed and desperation, then Max Donnelly would play the role of Pulp Fiction’s Mr Wolf. As the NRL was finalising its sanctions – a $1 million fine and stripping the Eels of 12 competition points – Donnelly was tasked with mopping up the mess.
Appointed by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority as the administrator of the Parramatta Leagues Club after the “Gang of five” officials implicated in the drama were removed, Donnelly had to contend with a $12 million deficit, a club riven by factionalism, the exit of star recruit Kieran Foran and missing out on Jarryd Hayne’s signature after the star fullback was cut from the NFL.
“It was pretty bad,” Donnelly recalled this week. “I’d like to think what had to happen has happened.”
The Eels also had to relinquish their 2013 Auckland Nines title, but got to keep the two spoons they earned while rorting the system. You wonder how they would have fared had they been cap-compliant.
The worst part of it was that, when the dramas were first revealed in this masthead, the Eels were a genuine contender. They were sitting in fourth spot and, had they not been docked 12 points, would have tipped out the Gold Coast for a spot in the finals. To make matters worse, that Titans team contained Hayne because the Eels couldn’t afford to offer their prodigal son a contract for what was left of a written-off 2016 season.
“Jarryd was on a plane back from America after his gridiron days and everyone was saying, ‘This is what you need’,” Donnelly said of the cross-code star, who was the biggest beneficiary of illegal payments.
“I would have begged, borrowed, back-ended – whatever. But I couldn’t give him a dollar for the 2016 season because it would have been murdering money.”
In the weeks before Donnelly was appointed, it was left to Brad Arthur to carry the can. Operating under a dysfunctional board and executive, the coach stepped up to rally the embattled club.
“Not of his choosing, but Brad Arthur became the face of the Parramatta Eels in the first half of 2016,” said Bernie Gurr, who relocated from his home in Orange County, California, to take over as Eels chief executive.
“Being a head coach of an NRL team is an all-encompassing job. In that first half of 2016, Brad was forced to answer media questions that would not have been his responsibility in a well-structured football club, such as detailed questions around the specifics of the alleged salary cap rorts.
“In addition, Brad had limited support within the football operations of the club due to the management dysfunctionality within the club. Issues that should have been dealt with by senior executives within the club ended up in Brad’s lap.”
The chief protagonists, understandably, are reluctant to revisit the sordid affair.
That extends even to those who emerged with their reputation enhanced, most notably Arthur. During his tenure, the blue and golds recovered sufficiently to make the 2022 grand final, and Arthur became the most capped Parramatta coach in history before being sacked two years later.
Not that there was much to look forward to while the club was in the eye of the salary cap storm. Not only did Parramatta agree to release Foran, so that the star half could deal with personal issues, they also paid him a six-figure severance. Junior Paulo and Nathan Peats were squeezed out so the club would fit under the salary cap. Norman, meanwhile, was suspended for two months for – among other things – drug possession, filming a sex act and consorting with known criminals at The Star casino.
It would take two years before a major sponsor was prepared to have its name emblazoned on a Parramatta jersey.
“The club had the significant trust issues, governance issues, salary cap problems, substantial financial losses, some substandard management practices and some uncertainty around the football program – challenges to say the least,” Gurr said.
The NRL struck the right balance in handing down sanctions. They took just enough competition points to prevent Parramatta from making the top eight, but not enough to totally crush the club into oblivion. The hamfisted way the club was being managed, it seemed, was punishment enough.
Beaten by a Melbourne team rorting the salary cap in the 2009 grand final, Parramatta felt the only way they could compete was to cheat. It all came undone when the Eels hierarchy couldn’t deliver the illegal cash they promised the players. Minuting their deceit in board minutes didn’t help, either.
Only after the dismissal of the board, and a raft of constitutional changes that limited the chances of entire factions taking power, did the club begin to heal.
Eventually, success has come in every facet except for the only metric that truly matters: premierships.
“In so many areas the club is a long way removed from the tough period it went through back in 2016,” said Eels chief executive Jim Sarantinos, who was initially appointed to the board that began the clean-up.
“We have one of the best training facilities in the game, we’re in a strong commercial position which allows us to continuously invest in our football programs, our academy programs across both male and female are among the best in the game, and we have a strong network of successful business people around the club.
“We’re obviously not where we want to be on the ladder, and we’ve had a difficult start to this season on the field with a lot of injuries. But given the quality of the young talent coming through our club, and with the right recruitment to strengthen our roster for next year and beyond, we feel like our NRL program is on the right path.”
The Eels are going through another tough patch, partly due to a horror injury toll. While the 10-year anniversary of the salary cap scandal is not an occasion to celebrate, it’s a reminder their plight was once much worse.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
