League: Fringe benefits to blame for breach

The warriors' salary cap breach of $1m over two years was composed almost entirely of "non-contract" payments or "obligations", according to Warriors chairman Maurice Kidd.

And the club is now looking at a rearrangement of player contracts to bring their remuneration more into line with NRL's best practices.

The off-contract payments or promises of payments were not included in players' NRL contracts. It is these add-ons which have taken the club into breach.

The Warriors are not saying what the payments or obligations were, nor to which players they were made.

However, they are thought to include considerations like promises of a job after a playing career, free trips and other fringe benefits for players and possibly players' agents.

One recent report in Australia suggested that Ruben Wiki and family had enjoyed a free trip to Disneyland and various other benefits which should be counted under the cap, according to the NRL's tough rules.

Kidd said: "I've never heard anything about a trip to Disneyland."

Wiki is a Herald on Sunday columnist and declined to comment or write a column addressing the salary cap issues.

"I would just be repeating myself in saying that my job is to focus on playing so I don't think I will say anything," said Wiki.

The club has previously said all player contracts would be honoured but Kidd said some may now be rearranged to spread the cost into other years.

"It's just a way of doing it so the payments move into another year but the quantum of the contract remains the same," he said.

The fact that the $1m excess is composed entirely of non-contract payments or obligations shows the scale of the practice - and it is highly unlikely the Warriors are on their own in that regard.

Kidd said the NRL, in policing the cap, did so by what was disclosed in the player contracts.

"We'll move towards a situation where we do not have off-contract payments or promises," said Kidd. "It is easier to control things that way and that is what we will do."

Kidd defended his position - that neither he nor the existing management knew anything of most of the excess payments.

"It would not be true to say that we did not know about all of them," he said. "We did know about some but we were told they had been approved by the NRL."

Kidd also said he understood the contention that the Warriors should "come clean" about all the details of the breach but said potential defamation and player privacy prevented that.

Asked if the board should have known about the off-contract matters, he said that financial accounts could be presented to a board which did not contain other items of information not relevant to those particular accounts.

"I don't think people quite understand that a set of financial accounts is one thing and a salary cap is a completely separate exercise," he said.

Kidd also defended CEO Wayne Scurrah and the Warriors' "complete cooperation" with the NRL.

Asked about reports that Scurrah might have been naive when handing over the Warriors' books to the NRL, Kidd said: "No, absolutely not. I don't think that is fair at all.

"This whole thing started back in November when [NRL auditor] Ian Schubert was doing a post-season audit. He saw things which raised his suspicions and said he'd come back. But he never said anything to the board, nor did the board have this situation brought to its attention by anybody. We did not know Schubert had suspicions.

"When Schubert came back, he started going through things with Wayne and Dave Curran [the Warriors' newly-appointed financial man, both of whom had started in the job after Schubert's first visit]. Wayne told Schubert he didn't know anything about what Schubert was pointing out. He rang me, I came straight down and we said the club would give the NRL its complete cooperation - that attitude has benefited us."

-HERALD ON SUNDAY