Always being reluctant to discuss and speak on the salary cap breaches by Melbourne Storm, former NRL CEO David Gallop has spoken about it for the first time.
Gallop admitted the NRL nearly gifted the Manly Sea Eagles and the Parramatta Eels the 2007 and 2009 premierships after they were taken off the Melbourne Storm.
Speaking to James Graham on his podcast, The Bye Round, Gallop revealed the NRL were extremely close to handing the two clubs Storm's stripped premierships.
"I think we thought about it, but the answer that we all arrived at was that they hadn't actually won the premiership and it would have been wrong to actually award it to Manly and Parramatta," Gallop said on The Bye Round.
In the same interview with Graham, David Gallop discussed the ugly affair of News Corp owning the Storm throughout the salary cap saga.
Instead of accepting responsibility, they washed their hands of the matter and blamed Brian Waldron.
"I thought that was a bit strange, because you could accuse News of a conflict if they asked us to go soft and not take the premierships, but they didn't do that at all," Gallop said.ย
"So, it was all a bit jumbled, people's thinking around that time.
"And I think, you know, News would probably say now maybe they should have understood what was going on, inside a club they owned, better.
"But I certainly don't think there was any conflict and there was no pressure to go soft."
