NRL Storm

[bennymacca]

What Melbourne Storm did is despicable and inexcusable. That cannot be argued.

What can be argued is the punishment handed down. Taking away the premierships and points earned so far is fine. But to not be able to win any more points? This is a punishment that impacts fans more than anything else, which I would have thought would be the last thing the NRL wanna do in an AFL state.

My $0.02

CT

fair point CT. but what if the storm went ahead and won the premiership AGAIN this year? it would kinda make a mockery of their punishment i think.

to the only way to prevent this was to strip them of their premiership points.


in my opinion, the storm will fold at the end of the year, and a new melbourne team will be formed.


what do those that follow league a bit more closely think about this?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

fair point CT. but what if the storm went ahead and won the premiership AGAIN this year? it would kinda make a mockery of their punishment i think.

to the only way to prevent this was to strip them of their premiership points.

To reiterate. I have no issue with the NRL removing premiership points earned by Storm while playing above the salary cap. ie all points earned this season up till now.

I just dont understand why they cant win any more? As I said, this is a slight on the fans, and completely unneccessary.

If Storm were to continue to play (within the salary cap) and win this seasons premiership, after having their points reset to zero after 5 rounds, then good on them I say

CT

[bennymacca]

To reiterate. I have no issue with the NRL removing premiership points earned by Storm while playing above the salary cap. ie all points earned this season up till now.

do the players have to pay the money back that they will be overpaid for this year? or is it just the administration that is getting fined? my understanding is that its only the admin, not the players.

if they dont pay and of the money back, then they are still in essence over the salary cap for this season.

this might be the reason that they can't win any points.

[wabbit999]

Heard on the Radio that ST Kilda, has increased in betting to get the wooden spoon... did they do it too?

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Heard on the Radio that ST Kilda, has increased in betting to get the wooden spoon... did they do it too?

They had the same CEO.

CT

[krunchie]

innitially i thought the "no more points" thing may have been a bit harsh, and im still not entirely convinced that it is very fair, maybe giving them -30 so that finals were an imposibility but still had a chance of beating the bottom sides or giving the team a chance to play for something like making + points.

Dont forget the punishment Uventis was given a few years ago when they got found guilty of match fixing

they were stripped of the premiership ( or what ever they called it ) all points and automatically dropped 2 leagues in the competition making sure it would take at minumim 2 years before the club got to play at the top level again.

im not sure why i think this is relavant but something tells me it is

[Adam Hancock]

It just occured to me:
One of our competitors here in Vic (very much so inferior league inferior staff etc) operate this weird sort of buy-in game in which the buy-in component is optional, but only the bought-in players can make the cash, the free-rollers are just there for the points I suppose.

This is kind of the same position the Storm are in, they can't win the 'cash' but can bad-beat the absolute f**k out of anyone else playing for real in this inferior league run by inferior staff/executives!!

[gundog]

The penalty smacks off lets get them Vic Bastards, would the penalty have been the same if its was St George, Manly or Brisbane, I think not, the NRL (should be NSWRL but we tolerate Qld and F the rest) has acted too quickly its appears more of a knee jerk reaction that has not been clearly thought out of the net effect on the remainder of the year.

Put yourself in the position of a Storm player, your playing for nothing why would you play at 100% and risk injury, i see the key players going to Super league next year.

Alas the Melb Storm will be no more next year and the NRL will revert back to the NSW/Qld and a token NZ team, that begs the question how much the NRL will have to pay the various stake holders of the stadiums for lost revenue, and will they still play a SoO game in Melb ever again.

So we say goodbye to another RL team Vale Newton Jets, Illawarra Steelers, Balmain Tigers, Western Suburbs Magpies, yes we lost the last 3 through forced mergers, lets hope the Storm can do a South Sydney like the Pheonix rise from the ashes.

The NRL has got rid of the Vic's now their biggest headache is yet to come AFL's GWS.

[Des]

Read about the penalty handed to Juventus in Serie A.

[maccatak11]

You act like this is all the NRL's fault gunny- maybe it was them who doctored the books...

To be honest, it would have been entirely fair in my opinion for the NRL to actually kick the storm out of the competition. By not doing so they are showing that they are committed to a successful team in melbourne - which David Gallop stated in his press conference.

What penalty would have been more approapriate gundog? I agree that the inability to accrue any points this season is a harsh penalty, and there will be an exodous of players, fans and sponsors during this season, but to think that Melbourne players will give up, or deliberately injure opposition players etc etc is simple an insult to the intelligence of the professional sportsmen that play for the storm.

This is probably the worst kind of cheating (read deliberate and systematic) outside of bribing officials or match fixing, so i believe the penalty to be entirely fair. Remember this is not the first, but the second major salary cap breach in the NRL in recent years (remember the bulldogs?), so the NRL needed to send a statement that it simply will not be tolerated in the NRL.

The difference between what happened with the story and Juventus (or is it Uventus krunchie? ) is that it is yet to be determined how much the players actually knew what was going on. Players could have had no idea that this was going on (although i find this hard to believe) or they could have been just as guilty as the administrators who engineered this system. Juventus (and a few other teams) riggeed games by selecting favourable referees, presumably without the knowledge of the players. So if the players were in on this, it could be worse. (Side note, Juventus only went to Serie B after an appeal)