Glory banned from A-League finals

Perth Glory have been banned from this year’s A-League finals series after being found guilty of cheating the competition’s salary cap.

And to add to their woes they were beaten 3-0 Sydney FC at nib stadium tonight.

The worst-case scenario for Glory was confirmed by Football Federation Australia boss David Gallop at a press conference in Sydney this afternoon.

READ THE FULL FFA STATEMENT BELOW

Perth have been fined $269,000 for breaching the league’s $2.55 million cap to the tune of about $400,000.

Gallop said six players at Glory had been involved in the breaches, which extend back to the 2012-13 season.

Glory have seven days to appeal the FFA’s finding. Club chief executive Jason Brewer pleaded the club's innocence and said it would explore every legal avenue possible to play in the finals.

But Glory revealed tonight that they have filed with the Supreme Court of Western Australia seeking an injunction against FFA’s verdict.

If that falls flat, Glory will go through the FFA’s appeals process in a bid to either overturn the decision, or reduce the penalty.

“This season, our player payments, paid under the salary cap, are forecast to be below that salary cap threshold of $2.55 million,” Brewer said.

“All the payments this club makes - to its coaches, players, administrative staff - are all made through the club’s accounts here.

“(They are) made by our finance department, recorded in our ledger, and those amounts are all audited at the end of the year by an independent auditor.

“We go into the next games on the basis that for all Perth Glory fans out there, our players are playing for points.”

The salary cap breaches apply to the past three seasons, including the current 2014-15 campaign.

Glory, who were sitting second before this afternoon’s ruling, will officially finish the regular season in seventh spot under the FFA’s ruling. Melbourne City and Brisbane Roar are now set to take the last two spots in the finals.

The determination renders their final three matches of the season irrelevant and has cast a cloud over tonight’s game even before the 0-3 loss to title contender Sydney FC.

Gallop said a decision on the future of the club’s officials was ultimately up to Glory, but he stressed it was “unlikely the management would be able to remain in place”.

Brewer said the club's response "will be predicated in part on the following facts":

1. The club’s Total Player Payments for the 2014-15 Contract Year are forecast by the club to be less than this year’s salary cap of $2.55m.

2. All payments to its players, coaches and administration staff are made directly by the club’s finance department, and recorded in its accounts which are independently audited on an annual basis and submitted to the FFA annually and have been reviewed by the FFA as part of the ongoing process of the past few months.

3. The club has cooperated with the FFA in this process as it did with an initial show cause notice issued to it in February. That process showed Perth Glory FC did not exceed the salary cap in any previous season.

"Perth Glory fans should be in no doubt that the Club will be responding to the FFA determination and that our players will be playing for important points tonight and in the coming weeks," Brewer said.

Glory are understood to have tried to argue in their evidence they have come under the salary cap in recent weeks due to contract and squad changes and should therefore not have been penalised.

A-League boss Damien De Bohun said: “They started the competition $400,000 over (the salary cap) and have effectively been at that level throughout the whole 24 rounds so far.

“It defies logic to suggest that you only have to be under the salary cap at the end of the season. Obviously the salary cap is a continual measurement from the start of the season right through to the end of the season.”

Gallop also oversaw the salary cap penalties that led to NRL powerhouse Melbourne Storm being stripped of two premierships for breaches committed over a period of five years.

“The penalties were appropriate in the previous ones I’ve been involved in and they’re certainly appropriate in this case,” Gallop said.

“Where you’ve got deliberate concealment of payments that are, in some respects, difficult to detect you need to impose strict penalties not only as a consequence of the behaviour but to send a deterrent to others engaged in the game.”

Glory keeper Danny Vukovic may have reflected the mood of the players when he responded to a tweet that fans had been continually let down by the club. "What about the players?" Vukovic said.

Adelaide United striker Bruce Djite expressed his sympathy for the Glory players.

The FFA statement

Football Federation Australia (FFA) has determined that Perth Glory Football Club will be excluded from the 2015 Hyundai A-League Finals Series after being found to be in breach of the Hyundai A-League’s Player Contract Regulations ('salary cap').

At the end of Round 27 the Club’s position on the ladder will be adjusted and recorded as seventh.

The sanction follows the determination that Perth Glory has deliberately failed to disclose reportable benefits and payments to at least six players, and from the beginning of the 2014/15 season has been operating in excess of the allowable salary cap of $2.55m by in the order of $400,000.

FFA has also determined that the Club was in breach of the rules for failing to disclose payments in the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons.

Perth Glory will be fined $269,000 in total for the breaches over the three seasons as follows:

- $26,000 for the 2012/13 season, being the value of the undisclosed payments and benefits

- $43,000 for the 2013/14 season, being the value of the undisclosed payments and benefits

- $200,000 for the 2014/15 season, taking into account the significance of the total sanction for this season, namely the exclusion from the Finals series (and consequently any prospect of qualifying for the 2016 Asian Champions League)

The breaches include deliberately not disclosing:

- Payments outside of the Standard Player Contract

- Payments to a player’s family member

- Payments of player agents’ fees

- A Third Party sponsorship

- A Pre-payment to a player

- Payment of travel costs

- Accommodation benefits

- Provision of motor vehicles

Perth Glory has seven business (7) days in which to lodge an appeal under the FFA’s regulations to the independent FFA Disciplinary Committee.

Glory great Jamie Harnwell delivered a stinging blow pre-match, saying the FFA ruling represented the worst day in the club’s history.

“It’s very difficult to find a huge amount of sympathy for the club,” Harnwell told Fox Sports.

“I think there’ll be a lot of anger towards Tony Sage and the management … it’s going to put a lot of people off the club again.”