The NRL integrity unit will investigate the role players agents may have played in the Cronulla salary cap rort after further details of undisclosed payments were revealed.
New accreditation rules implemented this year allow the NRL to appropriately punish agents who are found to have knowingly played a part in contravening the salary cap.
Todd Greenberg has previously flagged examinations into the role agents play in the NRL.Credit:AAP
The changes were made in the wake of a string of cap scandals which have rocked the game but, for the first time, the Herald understands the new power the governing body boasts could be put to use in the near future.
With the investigation into the full extent of Cronulla's cap rort now complete, it's understood the integrity unit's attention will now turn to the role played by agents in a scheme which delivered almost $1 million in illegal payments to Sharks players.
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Some of those payments were reportedly paid to agents in cash and the integrity unit will now seek to decipher whether the managers receiving those payments knew the Sharks were rorting the system.
"The NRL and RLPA now have more power to impose sanctions for breaches by agents," an NRL spokesman said. "The priority was to deal with clubs' role in the breach but now that this has been completed the question of the role played by agents will also be reviewed."
Punishing agents for their involvement in a salary cap scandal would be breaking new ground for the game.
Briefs against 11 managers were prepared in the wake of the Parramatta scandal in 2016 but while five Eels were officials de-registered, no action was taken against agents.
NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg first flagged agents being placed under the microscope when the change to the agent accreditation scheme was announced in August last year.
"In the past, the NRL has had no powers in relation to agents and this has led to unsatisfactory outcomes in several cases," he said. "Agents acting professionally have nothing to fear from the revised scheme but it will give us the scope to deal appropriately with those who do not act in the best interests of the players and the game."
There is no suggestion any Cronulla players knew of the rort, which dates back to 2013.
Former Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan was deregistered last December for having contact with the club during his suspension in 2014 over the peptides scandal and resigned in January before the NRL finalised salary cap sanctions for the club.
News Corp reported on Sunday that Flanagan sent a spreadsheet of undisclosed payments from his personal emRead More
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