Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe has been deregistered by the NRL

[Nergal]

 

In a stunning turn of events Wests Tigers CEO Justin Pascoe has been issued with a notice of intention to cancel his NRL registration over alleged breaches of the salary cap involving Robbie Farah.

The ruling comes after it was revealed the club made an undeclared arrangement worth around $639,000 over four years to Farah to act as a club ambassador when he left the Wests Tigers in 2016.

NRL CEO Todd Greenberg announced the sensational sanctions on Wednesday, proposing a fine of $750,000 for the breaches, as well as penalising the club’s 2019 salary cap by $639,000.

“We’ve issued a breach notice to the Wests Tigers for an alleged breach of the salary cap,” Greenberg said.

“We have obtained documents which showed the club entered an agreement to pay Robbie Farah to act as an ambassador at the club when he retired from playing.

“The games rules are very, very clear on these arrangements. Any commitment to make such a payment should have been disclosed and it should have been included in the salary cap.

“The club failed to do this. The club then compounded its conduct by submitting a misleading application to the NRL in relation to the salary cap treatment of money paid to Robbie when he left the club.

“We feel like the club and Justin have misled the NRL around this ambassador agreement and we have to provide consistent sanctions on individuals and clubs throughout. We’ve done that through other clubs and we have to do it again.”

Greenberg stressed there is no suggestion that Farah has done anything wrong.

NRL’s COO Nick Weeks explained there is a provision in the rules for clubs to have money excluded from the salary cap when a player is moved on for ‘reputational reasons’.

Weeks said after Farah left the Wests Tigers the club paid him money he was owed from his contract and approached the NRL to exclude some of the payments on the basis that he was a ‘destabilising influence’.