East Perth Chief Executive Dean Turner is relieved to have some clarity and understanding after a six-month auditing process draws to a close.
Last season’s minor premiers have undergone a comprehensive audit and have been found to have not exceeded the salary cap nor will they face any major sanctions.
Instead, the club will face a $2,000 fine for administrative errors relating to the initial Total Player Payment submissions.
An earlier report on SportFM published in November suggested the Royals could face severe sanctions including loss of 12 premiership points, fines and recruitment restrictions for said infringements.
This comes after a string of recent salary cap penalties and breaches from clubs like Perth, South Fremantle, and East Fremantle over the past few years.
However, the audit outcome, which was made public on Wednesday, found the breaches were only worth a fine, as the Royals did not go over the salary cap.
“It’s good after six months to finally get it clarified and understand our position,” Turner told Sports Breakfast.
“Unfortunately and obviously one of your reports earlier in the piece suggested that our club and another club were going to see the 12-point sanctions.
“A lot of those things have been out there running round and basically making life pretty difficult for us as a club and obviously upsetting our members and supporters.”
East Perth’s breaches are in relation to the Total Player Payment regulations regarding a Fringe Benefit Payment made to a player in the 2023 season.
The club’s former bookkeepers advised East Perth to exclude the FBT payments. However, upon review and further advice, this undisclosed amount was retrospectively included in East Perth’s 2023 TTP submission.
As the FBT amount did not fall outside of the WAFL’s salary cap amount, the club accepted a $2,000 fine for the oversight.
Turner openly admits East Perth made a genuine error and rectified it as soon as they were made aware.
“The part that’s probably still irking me is that the fact is that people keep talking about a minor breach and using the term salary cap, which is clearly false,” he said.
“We’ve had to pay a payment issue. We knew that back in July this year. Our previous accounting services were suggesting that FBT wasn’t applicable. This is why it wasn’t lodged.
“Our new accounting service, along with Colin Shawcross, who does the auditing for the Football Commission, came back to us and suggested no otherwise and that obviously FBT payment, we had to re-lodge and amend that, and that was back in July 24.
“We openly put our hands up. The administration error, it was a genuine error based upon the information we’ve been given with the accounting service previously.”
East Perth has since turned to another bookkeeper service and updated its accounting processes to ensure this saga is not repeated again.
In the initial report, Turner was also quoted as being confident the club would not be penalised for midfielder Michael Randall’s legal counsel as legal advice did not fall under the salary cap.
Randall tested positive to an illicit substances while playing for Peel in 2021, before signing with East Perth in 2022.
The Royals were cleared of all wrongdoing regarding the salary cap and TTP agreement in this case.
“In all my time of footy, I wasn’t aware that any costs associated with tribunals and sporting bodies was to be, and that’s obviously been vindicated,” said Turner.
“The suggestions around that the club offered Michael Randall legal representation to get the player to the sign for the club, which didn’t come out of the TTP audit.
“That came out of somewhere and certainly doesn’t come across in Colin Shawcross’s report. So again, that wasn’t the case.
“It’s been a long and really drawn out saga and obviously, personally, I’m pretty disappointed with it all.”
IMAGE: East Perth FC