Rugby League: How the Dogs were collared

By PETER JESSUP

The smoke from the Bulldogs' salary cap rort is just the first sign of a scandal that will run for years.

Work on the club's Oasis Development remains in abeyance for several reasons.

The Internal Commission on Corruption, federal Government tax investigators and New South Wales government corruption investigation teams are heavily into the books.

Macquarie Bank, which was to back the project, has pulled out. No other financial institution will want anything to do with the A$900 million ($1 billion) proposal while that lot hang around and until all issues regarding the current mess are cleared up.

For the Bulldogs, exceeding the A$3.25 million salary cap by about A$500,000 this season will cost them that amount. That is likely to come out of television fees; the NRL pays every club A$2.5 million a year as part of the pay-TV divvy-up.

The club will also lose sponsors. The National Telecommunications Group, which pours in A$500,000, is on the verge of leaving, as are smaller sponsors Clipsal and Adco.

The Bulldogs leagues club turns over around A$60 million a year, three-quarters of that from poker machines. About half the profits of around A$10 million a year go to the Bulldogs football club, a separate identity, as a grant.

Now, leagues club members are finding dirt and grime associated with people who have fingers in both pies.

Chief among these is Gary McIntyre, leagues club director, football club chairman and solicitor, chairman of the Oasis Development project which had been granted tax-free status as a community charity. He resigned under pressure from fans first from the football club, then the leagues club, but remains on the Oasis board.

Here's why the fans wanted him out.

Last year, McIntyre was paid A$20,000 as chairman of the football club, while the law firm which he operates from home received A$114,000 for legal fees; he received a free Jaguar car; he could eat at the leagues club restaurant free any time he liked and had an allowance to pick up bills for meal bills for others; he was known as "first-class Gary" by staffers who booked his travel (the directors of the club spent A$260,000 in expenses and nearly as much on airfares to destinations including Las Vegas and Amsterdam); his wife, Christine, was paid A$96,000 in "consultancy fees"; their son, David, is lawyer for the Oasis project.

Gary McIntyre was paid A$300,000 by Oasis for "consultancy fees", money that came straight from Liverpool City ratepayers. The A$22.5 million the Liverpool council has pledged to the project - equivalent to half the city's rate take for 2002 - is the only cash Oasis has. A$900,000 of it is spent, including a guarantee of A$200,000 to be paid to Bulldogs five-eighth Braith Anasta over four years so Oasis can use his face for promotion.

This was what triggered the investigations by Sydney Morning Herald financial journalists who spotted the hole in the books. A disaffected, unidentified informant leaked emails and personal notes by Bulldogs board members to two female reporters who didn't know what a salary cap was.

The informant has sent the hard drive of McIntyre's laptop to the Internal Commission on Corruption.

Also in the gun will be other former football club board members forced to resign following the revelations.

Among those is former policeman Barry "Punchy" Nelson, a colourful character who solved some of New South Wales' biggest crimes, including the hitchhiker murders committed by Ivan Milat. He was also accused by the commission of inquiry into corruption in the NSW police of accepting bribes from known criminals.

Nelson counts among his mates the disgraced robbery squad detective Roger Rogerson, accused of murdering a drug addict and relieving him of money intended to be used to bribe him, of letting a contract for the killing of the addict's girlfriend who was the principal witness, and of agreeing to be on the other side of town when bank robberies went down - for a cut.

Nelson's wife was paid A$45,000 last year in "consultancy fees". The wife of Bulldogs football club chief executive officer Bob O'Hagan was paid A$90,000, some of that listed as "for entertaining". The investigators are trying to determine how much of that she did, given the lavish restaurant bills stuck to club credit cards.

Rogerson is connected to the Oasis project via Nelson and another mate, Liverpool council purchasing officer Sam "Mr 10 Per Cent" Masri, both of them already under suspicion of taking kickbacks from contractors to the council.

Others also have colourful nicknames. A relative of a board member awarded maintenance contracts is dubbed "The Best-Paid Plumber in the West".

Then there is "Slippery" Al Constantinidis, once in partnership with former Prime Minister Paul Keating in a piggery.

Constantinidis' company, International Sports Marketing, accepted payments from the Bulldogs football club and Oasis and passed them on to players - the salary cap launder. He is now on the outer, suspected of being one outlet for information.

His company is implicated in inquiries into an order form sent from the club to a clothing manufacturer which was not licensed to produce Nike-labelled gear, for A$225,000 worth of Dogs jackets carrying the Nike logo.

The club marketing manager, Scott Seward, has said that what appears to be his signature on the order form is a forgery. Constantinidis has denied all knowledge of it.

Oasis was meant to be a Mecca in Sydney's west. It was to include pubs and clubs, a water theme park, ice-skating rink, a basketball stadium seating 5500, a football stadium seating 35,000, all built on 34ha of council-owned land and a NSW government-owned park.

Aside from the ratepayer input, the Bulldogs were up for A$11 million and the rest was to come from development and sale of 2500 residential apartments. Vocal backers include radio broadcasters Alan Jones - a former Wallaby and Souths coach - and John Laws. A few years ago those two were accused of giving banks good air-time commentary in return for advertising.

Oasis is in danger of becoming Sydney's monument to corruption.

The first big concrete pour at the site was halted a fortnight ago when engineers became concerned that the Liverpool council had not approved the paperwork. It is yet to resume.

There are two driving forces behind the proposal: one is the council, which wants to improve facilities for ratepayers; the second is the leagues and football clubs, who want to secure Sydney's second casino licence when a 10-year state government moratorium on gambling expires in six years.

The Dogs wanted to put 650 poker machines in the Oasis, running 24 hours a day. The state government had already restricted that to 400 and said it would not allow more unless the club bought them from existing gambling outlets. That decision is under appeal.

Liverpool mayor David Paciullo is on home leave after the revelations of the rort.

Paciullo accepted a "fact-finding" trip to Amsterdam in 1999, hardly the rugby league or gambling capital of the world. He also flew interstate to West Sydney Razorback basketball games at the Oasis board's invitation. The mayor has said he is awaiting a bill from the club and will cover his expenses for those.

Also on hold is a project to build 300 apartments above the Bulldogs' Belmore headquarters.

The consequences for the club will be more than financial. The NRL is watching while the Dogs look to cut A$450,000 from the "hidden" budget in order to meet next year's salary cap.

Definitely going are bench prop Paul Rauhihi who has signed with North Queensland, accused female basher and drink-driver halfback Darrell "Tricky" Trindall, who hasn't played a top-grade game this season but was paid A$140,000, and former Brisbane centre and lock Darren Smith, who is retiring at age 33, no doubt bitterly disappointed at how his career is winding down.

Kiwi centre Willie Talau has said he is considering offers from England. The rest want to stay.

The Dogs are considering whether to meet a promise of A$300,000 for prop and former Aucklander Willie Mason, upgraded from A$140,000 for this year since he gained Kangaroo status and became a target for other clubs. They are believed to have promised Parramatta backrower Andrew Ryan A$260,000 to beat offers from clubs including Canberra and the Warriors.

Players whose contracts have been renegotiated are believed to have taken pay cuts up to 8 per cent.

Anasta is still talking to the club management.

According to the balance sheets and projected budgets handed to the NRL audit team, the Dogs are contractually committed to pay A$2.9 million to 15 players now at the club, leaving A$335,000 to spend on 11 more.

The salary cap rort and the multiple investigations it sparked will handicap the team on and off the field for several seasons and reasons. The players promised "extras" can still legally enforce payment of that while claiming they had no knowledge of the rort.

Among the means of making extra payment to players filed with the NRL this season - not all of them Bulldogs methods - were: Payment for drinking at named pubs; a television commercial for a car maker, never screened; payment for appearance on lifestyle and fitness shows; money for endorsing real estate companies and shopping malls.

The Bulldogs fans' resolve to support management and, to a lesser extent, the players, is dwindling as the extent of the greed involved becomes apparent.