By WARREN GAMBLE
The game was up for the Bulldogs even as they put in another table-topping performance at the Sydney Showground last Friday.
As the players mauled the Parramatta Eels, getting back to their emphatic winning ways after the Warriors ended their 17-game winning streak the week before, club officials in
the stands knew a bigger battle loomed.
It broke in the Saturday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald, which revealed the Bulldogs had breached the National Rugby League salary cap by more than $1.5 million over the past two years.
Clubs are restricted to spending $3.25 million on their top 25 players.
Journalists Kate McClymont and Anne Davies cited internal documents showing the Bulldogs exceeded the cap by $700,000 this season, with at least eight players, including New Zealand centre Nigel Vagana, receiving additional payments .
The focus of their investigation was the Bulldogs' proposed $900 million Oasis sports complex, in a joint venture with a local council, and a separate huge new league club. The salary cap issue was just part of a bigger picture.
The Bulldogs, formerly known as Canterbury-Bankstown after the working-class southwest Sydney suburb, have a proud tradition of triumph over adversity, winning seven first-grade titles since they were formed in the Depression era of 1935.
The initial reaction to the story was typically hard-nosed from officials and fans. The agent for star player Braith Anasta, who allegedly got $270,000 more than his notified $205,000 Bulldog salary, threatened to sue the paper.
The man at the centre of the storm, Gary McIntyre, president of the goldmine Canterbury Leagues Club, said he was unaware of salary cap breaches and accused the paper of a smear campaign.
Fans posted website messages attacking the story, and the journalists involved received death threats.
On Monday, though, the club admitted to salary cap breaches of $400,000 this season, and $600,000 last year. The following day Bulldogs' chief executive Bob Hagan apologised to fans and resigned, and the National Rugby League began an urgent audit of the books.
The investigation centres on the leagues club which provides the grants to the separate football club to fund the teams.
The leagues club, a staple of Australian social life, gets a large slice of its income from poker machines.
When secret player payments were more common in the mid-1980s, one Sydney leagues club was reputed to have had a poker machine named after a player because all its proceeds were paid to him.
But more stringent rules, including video surveillance of clubs, means more tangled rorts emerged.
The Sydney Morning Herald investigation found that the Canterbury Leagues Club was using a third party, International Sports Marketing, to make payments to players.
The club transferred the money to ISM which then wrote cheques to players, relatives or companies associated with players.
One of the figures associated with ISM is Al Constantinidis, a former business partner of former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Constantinidis was also the instigator of the ambitious Oasis project being developed by the Bulldogs and the Liverpool Council.
The $900 million vision includes a 35,000-seat football stadium with retractable roof, an indoor basketball stadium now being built, a water park with a surf beach, and 2500 apartments.
The leagues club also proposes a controversial new headquarters in one corner of the site with up to 1000 poker machines.
Constantinidis has since parted company with the Bulldogs. The grand scheme is also being examined by council auditors after the Sydney Morning Herald revealed yesterday a $200,000 payment from the project apparently to a Bulldogs player.
The Bulldogs' damage control, once they admitted salary cap breaches, has been undermined by its deletion of a key paragraph in documents sent to the NRL on Monday.
In a letter from leagues club president McIntyre to football club chief executive Hagan this month, a blanked-out paragraph revealed the Bulldogs had budgeted for player payments of $890,000 above the cap this year, twice the amount it told the NRL.
McIntyre has since said the information was not relevant to the investigation because it was inaccurate.
The 59-year-old lawyer is under further pressure as the week ends with the Herald obtaining a letter signed by him spelling out the top-up payments.
"This letter is to confirm that International Sports Marketing Pty Ltd had agreed to grant (player name deleted) a sponsorship contract for a term of two years. The Canterbury Bulldog League Club guarantee these payments. The payments are additional to payments that (player's name) is entitled to under the terms of his contract with the Bulldogs Rugby League Club."
Bulldogs playing legend Steve Mortimer was appointed new chief executive on Thursday to help restore the club's tarnished image. He has pleaded with the league to let the Bulldogs compete in the finals, but, despite other coaches supporting that view, it seems an unlikely outcome.
Canberra, scheduled to face the Bulldogs tomorrow, have suggested they should be disqualified immediately.
Bulldogs coach Steve Folkes replied that was because "we are running first", but Canberra chief executive Simon Hawkins retorted: "The Bulldogs are No 1 and we now know why."
The top dog label is rapidly slipping away.
By WARREN GAMBLE
The game was up for the Bulldogs even as they put in another table-topping performance at the Sydney Showground last Friday.
As the players mauled the Parramatta Eels, getting back to their emphatic winning ways after the Warriors ended their 17-game winning streak the week before, club officials in
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