Geelong is expecting to be sanctioned over discrepancies in their third-party player payments, with fines looming, according to a report.
The Cats have been audited by the AFL over the past few months as part of regular checks on club books and according to veteran reporter Caroline Wilson, the league has found several issues.
“The AFL conducts regular salary cap audit activities across a number of clubs every year as part of our annual salary cap compliance process,” a league spokesperson said in March.
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“We do not provide commentary on the conduct or progress of any of these activities and the only time we release any information publicly is if we determine there has been a breach of AFL rules.”
The audit has reportedly found discrepancies between its results and the Cats’ books, including “lodgements that should have been noted but weren’t”, according to Wilson.
“The audit is virtually finished. Results have been slowed down by the fact that Geelong COO Marcus King has been away, I think studying actually at Harvard, he’s back, and my belief is that Geelong are expecting a fine, or there will be a fine from the AFL over the coming weeks,” she said on Seven.
“Geelong have been adamant, from the word go, that there is no smoking gun here, that nothing untoward was going on at the Geelong Football Club in terms of any attempt to hide third party payments.
“The AFL accepts this, but there have been discrepancies, there have been lodgements that should have been noted that weren’t, and they will lead to several five-figure fines, whether they go beyond five figures, I can’t tell you.
“I do know that one major lodgement issue was a car to a senior AFLW player that wasn’t lodged. And I think there might be a couple of other things as well.”
It would not be the first time a club has been fined for incorrect lodgements with Brisbane fined $10,000 in 2017 due to an administrative error which saw a discrepancy with their total player payment information.
“We’re not saying that there was any cheating, that there was any attempt to cheat the salary cap,” Wilson said.
“What it will lead to, and the AFL have told Geelong and other clubs, this is that there’s been a loosening of management issues at many clubs, and a warning will be given to all clubs with a crackdown on third party payments. And this has been led by what’s happened at Geelong.”
Previous potential payment issues cited around the Cats have included Bailey Smith’s deal with Cotton On, and Chris Scott’s deal with Morris Finance, both elite-level club sponsors.
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