The smell from today’s rugby league disaster is wafting over the Melbourne Rebels’ administration with CEO Brian Waldron in a potentially untenable position.
For the past five years the Melbourne Storm rugby league franchise (of which Brian Waldron was Chief Executive Officer until only recently) was rorting the league salary cap regime and essentially running two sets of books to enable ‘secret’ payments to be made to players.
Nothing in rugby league surprises me any more but to have an administrator who was operationally in charge of this franchise whilst the rorts were taking place and now currently involved in our game is a disaster of the first order and a major crisis for the Rebels.
It’s been reported that the fraudulent nature of these activities are such that they will be the subject of a criminal investigation.
There is no salary cap with a Super 15 franchise so it’s not as though rugby clubs are exposed to similar activities.
However, the suspicion with the Storm imbroglio is how could a deception of this magnitude involving large sums of money and creative accounting not be known to the guy who was making the ultimate operational decisions and who wrote out the cheques?
That’s something I guess we’ll be finding out in due course as this maelstrom rolls through its natural course.
Not that I give a damn with what happens to a mungo club but the fact that this appears to be a systemic fraud undertaken during Waldron’s watch and in which he will obviously have questions to answer brings a black cloud over his current role.
And it sounds to me that the $1.7m uncovered to date may only have been the tip of the iceberg in terms of payments identified.
Today’s announcement would have sent shivers down the spine of all rugby league club CEO’s as David Gallop has telegraphed that he’s on to them.
Give him his due, he’s made a courageous decision to deliver the maximum penalty – well, not quite ‘hung by the neck until dead’ but certainly 20 years with hard labour….
The Melbourne Rebels would be in disaster aversion mode as we speak and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
Maybe two or three scenarios: either they throw him overboard (with or without a lifejacket), he falls on his sword or he barely survives. I just cannot seriously believe that Waldron is going to live to tell the tale.
No-one’s in a position at this time to say whether he’s guilty of fraud or was the main player in all of this. However, all the indicators are pointing south for him and as a rugby fan I’m concerned.
These sorts of allegations go to the heart of integrity and the new Rebels’ franchise cannot afford to have a CEO tainted by ‘corrupt payment’ allegations (if that’s what comes out of this), especially at such a susceptible time.
Waldron was a good choice in terms of corporate sporting knowledge and obvious business acumen; however, if there’s the slightest hint that he’s won premierships by ‘worshiping false gods’ i.e. ‘mammon’, then he needs to be jettisoned quick-smart.
However, until that time natural justice needs to take its course – over to you Brian.
Note: News Ltd (the owners of the Melbourne Storm) CEO John Hartigan is quoted in the SMH as saying that ‘at this early stage’ Brian Waldron was the architect of this ‘secret’ payment system.
