Canterbury General Manager Phil Gould has laid a landmine ahead of his side's Good Friday battle with the Bunnies, claiming the Redfern club had a case to answer over their contractual standoff with embattled playmaker Anthony Milford.
The ex-Bronco was originally meant to make his way to Souths for the 2022 season, however, after becoming embroiled in a Fortitude Valley incident in September which saw him charged with three counts of assault and a single count of wilful damage, the Bunnies culled their extension.
Despite Milford having his three separate assault charges dropped earlier in the week, the half is still expected to plead guilty to the lesser charge of wilful damage and public nuisance.
With the 27-year-old reportedly forced to live with his parents in a cost-saving exercise whilst frozen out of the competition, Gould has called for an investigation into Souths' supposed clerical misdeeds that have seen Milford's financial status worsen.
“The situation of his contract status with South Sydney bears thorough investigation,” Gould stated on his own podcast, Six Tackles with 'Gus'.
“I don’t think it’s been investigated anywhere near enough. I’m not putting any blame on the NRL for this, but I think South Sydney has got a number of questions to answer about their contract situation with Anthony Milford because Anthony Milford’s contract has not been registered."
Gould went on to suggest that the Rabbitohs' choice to drag their feet on registering Milford's single-season deal had caused financial strains.
“Anthony Milford has had no payment, no money, living with his wife and children in a one-bedroom in his parents’ house in Brisbane since last year because he was facing these charges and South Sydney and the league would not register his contract. When in fact, the contract should’ve been registered when it was signed on the 31st of July last year," Gould added.
“It was then sent by South Sydney to the league to be registered on the 12th of August. Why there was a delay of 12 days, I don’t know. South Sydney was informed six days later on the 18th of August that there was a problem with the signing of the contract."
The league aficionado went on to stress that although deals were scuppered regularly, in Milford's case, certain irregularities stood his particular agreement apart from the vast of others.
“This is a very common occurrence, contracts are often sent back ... it’s a big document and sometimes some pages and some variations aren’t initialled, but this was about the stat dec [statutory declaration]," Gould delineated.
While proving willing to speak on the administrative side of Milford's current situation, Gould also took further steps to defend the Samoan International by claiming that after examining CCTV footage of the alleged assaults, Milford never had a case to answer in his eyes.
“If you knew the Anthony Milford facts like I know of this matter – there is only one person through all of that Anthony Milford thing that has been wronged and that is Anthony Milford himself on two counts,” Gould said.
“First of all, on the charges of assault and having to go to court and deal with these types of things – which we’ve seen now the charges have been dismissed because they were not sustainable and supported by video evidence – I’ve actually watched the whole video, I watched exactly what transpired on the night and how it came to this.
“There are two things Anthony Milford has been terribly wronged: number one is having these charges and the matter played out in public, and that he’s been charged with assault, which just didn’t happen ... when you see it, it’s mind-boggling.”
Now under a court-ordered good behaviour bond, Milford appeared outwardly free to link up with Adam O'Brien and the Knights for the remainder of the 2022 season, but with the NRL announcing that their integrity unit would be opening their own investigation into Milford's purported misdeeds, the former million-dollar man is not yet home free.
However, Milford's manager, Sam Ayoub, claimed on Tuesday that he held would be pressing for this extended sidelining to be shortened.
“I hope the NRL clear Anthony to play as soon as possible,” Ayoub said.
“There is no reason for him to be sidelined any longer. The courts of the land have cleared Anthony of all assault allegations, so we hope to go through the process of having him registered by the NRL immediately.
“We have had some constructive talks with Newcastle and they are ongoing. The ball is in their court and his registration is a matter for the NRL.
“Anthony is ready to play. Fitness-wise, he is fine. He has been training the house down during his time away so he could hit the ground running if an NRL club signed him.
“He has been treated extremely unfairly over this matter. I saw vision of the incident and the only person who was assaulted was Anthony Milford.”
