The 2010 Melbourne Storm salary cap breaches rocked the NRL and Australian sport to their core. But what happened to the players that were left to fend for themselves after leaving the club?
In 2010, the Melbourne Storm was found guilty of breaching the NRL salary cap for several years, during which they concealed payments and exceeded the cap by a significant amount.
As a result, the team faced severe penalties, including the stripping of their 2007 and 2009 premiership titles and the 2006, 2007, and 2008 minor premierships.
They were also fined $1.7million and had to return $1.1million in prize money.
On top of that, the team was prohibited from accruing any premiership points for the remainder of the 2010 season, effectively nullifying their competitive standing for that year.
This scandal had a profound impact on the club’s reputation and required a complete restructuring of their financial operations to comply with league regulations.
While the club showed a united front in the face of the scandal and widespread accusations of cheating, players like Ben Cross was forced to face it in isolation.
Ben Cross played for the Melbourne Storm during the 2006 and 2007 seasons that have been wiped from the history books
Cross was at the club for the 2006 grand final loss to the Brisbane Broncos and stripped 2007 premiership win over the Manly Sea Eagles, but had since moved on to play at Newcastle.
The way he found about the news was almost as devastating as the scandal itself.
‘I had just dropped my wife off at the airport and come back into Newcastle and got a phone call from a journalist in Newcastle telling me everything that sort of happened,’ Cross told the Andy Raymond Unfiltered Podcast.
‘There was a couple of players that had left the club, Garret Crossman was over in England, Matty King was in England, and I was at Newcastle.
‘But the majority of that team that had played, they were all still in [Melbourne]. So I was there doing all this stuff on my own. Going through all that on my own in Newcastle.’
While Storm coach Craig Bellamy famously front the media in Melbourne with his players standing behind him, Cross was met with questions and cameras without any support.
He revealed there were even confronting questions asked by staffers at the Knights.
‘So then I turn up to training at Newcastle and there happens to be a plethora of bloody reporters and photographers and that stuff,’ he said.
‘I’m getting questions within my organisation. Hang on, I know a few things about what goes on at footy clubs so don’t be throwing stones.
‘So you had to bat back all those questions and interviews all the time and just give the information of what you knew at the time as well.’
While the Melbourne Storm made a united front at home, players that had left the club had to fend for themselves
The salary cap breaches attracted the biggest penalties ever handed down in Aussie sport
Cross said he had to deal with being called a cheat without any communication or support from the Storm.
‘I didn’t get any briefing from Melbourne Storm at all. They were bunkered down, they had to do their own stuff.
‘It wasn’t until I had a conversation with Craig maybe a couple of years after that, not too long after that, that he didn’t probably really realise the impact it had on us players that were outside of Melbourne at that time.
‘I remember playing a game at Cronulla that year and getting hurled abuse and stuff like that.
‘I was like, what am I going to do about it? [Why] the hell are you doing it to me?’
Despite all of that adversity, Cross has learned to let the past go. But he also said the players to accept they had not won those premierships fair and square.
‘We knew how hard we worked. It was just bloody hard work,’ he said.
‘Those things that happened outside of our control, we didn’t have control over.
‘Like most players at nearly every NRL club, they’ve got a lot of things that happen behind closed doors that they’ve got zero control over.
‘It was sort of, just worry about yourself a little bit and take stock of yourself before thinking about throwing stones at others.
‘Nah it doesn’t burn. We go back to all the hard work, I remember all the conditioning sessions we did and how hard we played.
‘Put an asterisk beside it or wipe it off, it doesn’t really bother me.
‘It’s the memories and the bonds that we created with those people at the time that we knew we achieved.
‘I think there is still some aspirations to fight and get those premierships back.
‘And there’s been less penalties handed down for more breaches since. Go figure.’
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