STORM STRIPPED OF TITLES
Posted on Thursday, April 22, 2010 by Shem Banbury
The Melbourne Storm have been stripped of two National Rugby League championship titles and fined $A1.5 million ($NZ1.96 million) after being found guilty of long-term salary cap breaches.
NRL chief executive David Gallop also said today that Melbourne would not accrue any competition points in the 2010 season.
Gallop said the Storm had been found to have exceeded the salary cap by at least $A1.7m ($NZ2.21m) over five years.
Melbourne were stripped of their titles from the 2007 and 2009 seasons, but losing grand finalists Manly and Parramatta would not assume those titles.
The Storm were also stripped of three minor premierships for finishing first in the regular season.
"They had a long-term system of effectively two sets of books and the elaborate lengths they have gone through to cover this up has been extraordinary," said Gallop.
"The club has furthermore been fined $A500,000 ($NZ651,000) and will be forced to return $A1.1 million ($NZ1.45m) in prizemoney, with the prizemoney being distributed evenly among the other 15 clubs."
The club last month opened its books to salary cap auditor Ian Schubert after it emerged the NRL was concerned with several issues regarding player payments, including a third-party television deal involving skipper Cameron Smith.
Gallop said the Storm confirmed that undeclared promises of extra payments were stored in a secret file.
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