Having been a supporter of a club that won promotion to the Premier League for the first time in its history, only to see that moment snatched away when the club were found guilty of illegal payments to its players, this writer knows first hand how deflating it can be. As a fan you invest so much more than money into your club, your team; but the modern day owners in the main fail to realise this.
Perth Glory must respond to the Football Federation’s second “show cause” notice today. How they respond to the allegations levelled at the club could have a huge bearing on the penalties handed out, if found guilty.
The club has been asked to respond to allegations that it failed to disclose breaches involving: Payments outside of the Standard Player Contract, Payments to a player’s family member, Payments of player agents’ fees, Payment of a third party sponsorship, Pre-payment to a player, Payment of travel costs, Accommodation allowances, and Provision of motor vehicles.
Many close to the club are well aware that the club has in fact breached the $2.55million salary cap conditions in many of these instants. It is going to be very hard to plead ignorance, as the rules have not changed recently, and incompetence is no defence.
So far we have heard the owner claim ignorance of such breaches and that he CEO’s head will roll if the club is found guilty. Yet former staff, and some involved with the club this season claim not a payment goes through, especially when it comes to players, without the owner agreeing to the terms tabled. So if the employees are to take the blame let us hope they receive a sizeable “golden handshake,” and that the severance pay is in fact paid on this occasion.
Sadly for fans the news does not appear to be good, and the scuttlebutt is that far more than just two players are involved in receiving “benefits” outside of their contract.
There has been talk of fines, point deductions and even the FFA taking back the licence, but all of these are speculative until Perth Glory explains their version of the alleged breaches.
The word is the club is already trying to offload players from the payroll for next season and no doubt word of this will have reached the FFA.
So as happened with Swindon Town, the players will move on, and the storm surrounding them will blow over. The same will happen no doubt happen at Perth Glory. This is sadly one of the injustices of football.
The CEO may be moved on, along with the man overseeing the accounting. However the fans will remain. They will have to ride the mickey-taking from rival fans, and hope that whoever takes over can indeed resurrect the club.
At Swindon the club President and the club accountant were both sent to prison as the Inland Revenue -the equivalent to the Australian Tax Office – felt that they had been defrauded. The people behind the deception were banned from football. Will Australian Football witness the same strong reaction? It is unlikely as those who were paid extra in the NRL at Melbourne Storm went unprosecuted. Should they be banned from football? There are many would say that they should. Australian football is only just finding its feet and could well do without such a scandal, but again that outcome is unlikely and again is dependent on the club being found guilty.
Moving forward, if the breaches are as big as we have been led to believe the FFA should put in place clear penalty guidelines should a club be caught rotting the system in the future. Penalties they have the courage to enforce as the only people being ripped off are the fans; although sponsors may not be too happy either.
Whatever the outcome one cannot feel that this is a blow to the fans from which the owner will never recover. Many fans are already talking of boycotting the remaining games, which would be a huge financial blow. Mr Sage is frequently reported as claiming that he has the support of the majority of fans. He doesn’t, and hasn’t for a number of years. If he utters that line again when the FFA hand down their findings then there is no hope. He should stick to playing fantasy football.
We will all have to see what pans out in the next week, but one thing is for sure, the administrators may change, the playing staff will change, but the fans, those blindly loyal people who have bought into the club emotionally, will never leave.
