Hastings Football Club salary cap breaches ‘effectively self-reported’

THE AFL South East did not have to go searching for evidence to make its case for Hastings Football Club’s salary cap breaches, as the league’s general manager revealed how the transgressions were discovered.

Hastings players celebrate with the premiership cup in 2016. Picture: Mark Dadswell

THE AFL South East did not have to go searching for any brown paper bags to make its case for Hastings Football Club breaching the salary cap.

The Blues effectively self-reported that they were almost $50,000 over the $150,000 player payments ceiling.

RELATED: Hastings hit with fines over salary cap

The Mornington Peninsula club yesterday became the first in Victoria to be nabbed for breaking the salary-cap rules introduced to suburban and country football by AFL Victoria last year.

AFL South East general manager John Anderson said last night he was shocked when he inspected Hastings’ end-of-season declaration for 2017.

“It was a staggering thing to me. I had to sort of look at it twice,’’ Anderson said on the 3AW Sportsday program.

“The declaration was a document that clubs had to load on to the system at the end of the season. You basically look at the bottom line and there it was. So effectively they’d self-reported their own breach.

“I don’t know what their expectation was when they put it in. But certainly once it’s disclosed … in terms of investigation, this was a very simple one. There were some adjustments made. There were allowances for coaches who can have half their playing-coach deducted etc …. There were some deductions that they were entitled to, which brought it down a fraction. But yeah, it was just a matter of following through the process. We still had to have the investigation, because that then flows through to the discipline committee and the charges being laid.’’

AFL South East general manager John Anderson says he had to look at Hastings’ declaration of its bottom line.

Hastings was fined $45,000 after being found guilty of four charges, but $35,000 was suspended for two years pending any further breaches.

Anderson said the ruling took into account Hastings’ guilty plea and that 2017 had been the first year of the salary cap “and we were really trying to educate people to use the system and get themselves under the cap’’.

He said Hastings had since had a change of administration.

“I think it’s (the penalty) reasonable. It could be argued it’s lenient. But certainly any future cases like that one would (produce) a much harsher penalty …. you’d almost go dollar for dollar in a money situation over the cap.’’

Anderson said AFL South East would audit the salary caps earlier in the year to pick up any breaches before finals.

“It’s a bit late in the day after a premiership has been won to then find a club exceeding the cap.’’

Hastings players celebrate with the premiership cup in 2016. Picture: Mark Dadswell

Loss of points and even relegation were other possible punishments.

Anderson said the salary cap was “a good thing in terms of sustainability of clubs and trying to pull back the overspending that happens’’.

But he admitted it was hard to police.

“We can only really seek or find out what’s genuinely loaded on the contracts and input into the system … it’s a little bit more difficult to find some of the other types of payments.

“There are always little bits and pieces around clubrooms. We talk about the bloke who wins the player of the day. There are some allowances for minor things like that. The players sign up to contracts, the contracts are loaded on to the system, you check that it all adds up at the end of the day.

“But if there is anything under the table that’s not documented you need a pretty good whistleblower in a case like that.’’

Anderson added: “Hopefully the message is loud and clear that we’re auditing these salary caps and clubs will comply in the future.’’