A Storm of Controversy

Rugby League's Melbourne expansion experiment is dead.

Once again our great game is making headlines for all the wrong reasons, only this time it's the biggest controversy since the Bulldogs salary cap saga of 2002.

The Melbourne Storm, previously labelled the "Team of the decade" and on their way to establishing a bona-fide dynasty after being premiership favourites again this year, have been exposed to have been rorting the salary cap by $1.7 million over the last five years.

The 2007 and 2009 premierships are now void, and the club has lost the right to accumulate points from games won this season. The club faces a $500,000 fine on top of the $1.1 million in prize money it now has to return.

The Storm are accused of keeping separate books to conceal the extra payments that helped them hold their team of superstars for so long. The question of "how do Melbourne have such a great group of players?" has been answered.

In Melbourne today club chairman Rod Moodie has admitted the club may fold after sponsors have began deserting the Storm in droves. But the Storm's problems go deeper than that. Owners News Limited can keep throwing cash at the embattled club but the reality is that the die-hard AFL people of Melbourne - already fickle when it comes to our game - will share our disgust at the team and turn their heads back to their own game, ending their brief, minor and fleeting interest in Rugby League.

And once the other 15 NRL clubs pick apart the corpse of the Storm there will be no top players left to win games anyway, even next year when the victories might mean something.

Interestingly, many have suggested to me that as a Bulldogs fan I should be pleased about seeing this happen to the Storm after the trials and tribulations I went through as a fan in 2oo2. But I take no joy from what has happened. It is a blight on our game and a slap in the face to many of the punters who had begun to trust Rugby League again.

Even more disgusting (if true) are comments supposedly made by former Storm CEO Brian Waldron, who is alleged to have said of salary cap cheating, "Everybody does it ... if we want to be competitive, we have to do it." Such arrogance pours more salt into the wounds of the rugby league faithful.

My thoughts go out to Melbourne's fans - those who thought they had something special to call their own, a Rugby League team in AFL dominated Melbourne. My thoughts go out to the players who put their heart and soul into every minute they played over the last five years. It seems it was all for nothing now.

It's cruelly unfair that those who are innocent in all this are going to suffer the most. In the meantime, Rugby League is back to square one again, with its work cut out for it to win the people over, all over again.