The Cronulla Sharks are being investigated for salary cap breaches

THE Sharks are currently under investigation by the NRL for salary cap breaches.

However the club have stressed that they are confident it will not affect their 2018 finals campaign and they will not be stripped of points.

Fox League expert Paul Kent has revealed on NRL 360 the extent of the investigation.

“Sharks Chief Executive Barry Russell found an irregularity in the 2015 season, the Sharks had a payment of $50,000, that appeared to be a nondisclosed payment outside the salary cap,” Kent said.

“The Sharks reported that to the NRL and the NRL looks favourably on clubs who self-report.

“Russell reported it to the NRL integrity unit, that got involved and they sent their forensic team into the Sharks and they took away their hard drives, emails and phone records.

“They have been going through those over the last three months.

“The 2016 season, when the Sharks won the premiership at the moment appears clean, but it appears in 2017 there are irregularities of several hundred thousand dollars.

“The NRL are still looking at this, so we are in the midst of this investigation.

“All the details are not out at the moment, but the NRL today maintained the position that all 16 clubs are salary cap compliant this season.

“However at the same time the NRL has admitted that they haven’t been through all the records yet, which seems to be in conflict with the claim that the Sharks are salary cap compliant.

“That is based on the audit, that the NRL has done on every club, but not on the information that they are still going through.

“It may well prove to be that the Sharks are compliant, but how the NRL can declare that, I don’t know.

“My frustration with the NRL is that they said they have been busy with the Manly situation, but the priority has be to get Cronulla dealt with, before the finals.

“You would think the Sharks would be more important than the team running 15th and finding out what happened two years ago.

“This is an absolute must now for the NRL. They have to drop all tools at the NRL and have everybody on this and have us in some sort of state, that when we go into the finals in 10 days, we can actually say that this team is legal.”

The Sharks released a club statement on their website in reaction to the investigation.

“The Cronulla Sharks informed the NRL Integrity Unit earlier in the year of salary cap discrepancies relating to historical third-party player payments, discovered during a club instigated governance review,” the statement read.

“The Sharks self-reported to the NRL and asked for their assistance in investigating this matter. The club is fully co-operating with the NRL Integrity Unit, allowing them access to any information they require to complete their investigation.

“The discrepancies occurred under previous club Management. This is a historical issue, we are currently salary cap compliant for the 2018 season having passed our mid-season salary cap review.

“Due to the ensuing investigation by the NRL Integrity Unit, we will be making no further comment until the outcome of the investigation is known.”

This fresh scandal raises questions over whether the NRL are harsh enough on salary cap offenders.

Paul Crawley was left frustrated by another fresh salary cap investigation being made on the eve of the finals.

“I’ve been saying that for a decade,” Crawley said.

“It’s too often that we have to hear these allegations.

“The whole reason the cap was brought in was to work in conjunction with a draft and we’ve never had that.

“We did a fan poll in the paper and 86 per cent of fans want player wages made pubic.

“But even that won’t fix the problem if allegations like this are going on.”

Retiring Sharks’ legend Luke Lewis was also a guest on NRL 360 and he denied any knowledge of the salary cap investigations.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Lewis said.

Paul Kent reiterated the fact that not enough has been done to discourage teams from cheating the salary cap.

“The AFL had their only significant salary cap scandal in 2002, when the Cartlon Blues were deemed to be cheating the salary cap,” Kent explained.

“The AFL came in and gave them such a kicking, it basically rendered Carlton ineffective for the next five or six years and it scared every other team, who didn’t want to go through the same thing.

“They have not had a salary cap scandal since.

“We had Parramatta absolutely done for cheating the salary cap and the NRL decided to punish them to the point, where they could still win the competition in the same season that they were cheating.

“At some point the NRL has to take this seriously or continue to be the laughing stock of sport.

“You never hear of this in the NFL where they have a salary cap or major league baseball.

“Yet it is becoming an annual event in the NRL.”

Hopefully for the game’s sake this latest scandal can be the turning point for a change to the system, so that NRL fans don’t have to go through this again.

Ben Ikin believes the players need to be included as partners, in order to stamp salary cap cheating out of the game for good.

“For me it starts with the players,” Ikin said.

“If the players are involved in a contract that exceeds what has been registered with the governing body and they are found to be rorting the cap or being part of a rort themselves, then they are the ones that should cop the penalty.

“If the player fears for his own future and his own contract he will want to make sure that the club and the CEO are not doing anything that will threaten his livleyhood.”