Netball must name those responsible for cheating scandal

If Super Netball wants to be a top-tier sport, it must immediately name those responsible for the biggest cheating scandal in the competition’s history.

West Coast Fever players look dejected after losing the Super Netball grand final in October. On Monday, the league found the club had rorted the salary cap in the 2018 and 2019 seasons Picture: Getty Images

The revelations on Monday that West Coast Fever had been found to have conducted a massive salary cap rort in Super Netball has been accompanied by a farcical lack of detail from all involved in the investigation.

All that is known is that the Fever cheated the salary cap by 20 per cent in 2018 and 25 the following year. We know it was a deliberate attempt to cheat, achieved through “undisclosed contracts”.

But that’s it.

Undisclosed to whom? The league? Members of the Fever’s own leadership? It’s definitely a mystery to fans of Super Netball.

Basic questions of how this happened at a club that prides itself on good governance remain unanswered, with West Coast insisting that the details of its investigation must remain confidential. To the Fever’s credit, the club fully cooperated once an investigation was launched by Super Netball in June.

Fever’s chief executive Simon Taylor and chair, Dean Pieters, both resigned after the 2020 grand final. The club said on Monday that both had left for personal reasons.

“We will not be commenting any further on any other individuals in relation to these breaches – we take full responsibility for this outcome as a club,” said the Fever in a statement on Monday.

The exception to this collective responsibility is the Fever’s players and coaches. They had no idea, say the Fever. Their innocence would be far more emphatic if accompanied by some detail on the mechanics of those undisclosed contracts.

Super Netball commission chair Marina Go stressed on Monday that the league could not comment on who was to blame, as it only investigates clubs, not individuals.

The statement defies logic as a club is nothing if not a collection of individuals.

The questions put forward by league compliance officer Dr Peter Hertan were surely answered by a member or members of the club who had knowledge of the situation.

And in an organisation as small as a netball team, a list of who could have known gets extremely brief if you rule out players and coaches.

The rorting of the cap was not a spontaneous event. It was the result of a series of decisions.

In a vacuum of information, fans are already jumping to their own conclusions on social media. By naming no one, the club will tar the reputations of everyone in the building.

It’s time for netball to get real. This lack of transparency would not fly in any of the codes that Super Netball aspires to compete with. Honesty is the only path to building trust, a lesson that netball’s leaders have repeatedly failed to learn this year.

“It is important to know that we are deeply committed to ensuring this never happens within our Club again,” West Coast said in Monday’s statement.

Yes, we’ve let you all down, says the club admitting to the most flagrant act of cheating of the Super Netball era.

We’ve changed, but we can’t tell you how, or if the people responsible still work here, says that very same club.

Because? Well, because confidentiality. How insulting.