Disgraced former Melbourne chief executive Brian Waldron has broken his silence to explain his part in the Storm's NRL salary cap scandal.
Speaking to Melbourne radio station SEN on Wednesday, a remorseful Waldron accepted full responsibility for the salary cap breaches that saw the club stripped of the 2007 and 2009 premierships and fined $1.7 million by the NRL, five years ago.
Waldron wasn't making excuses for the systematic breaches he oversaw, but he was at pains to point out the circumstances that led to them.
Circumstances he believes centred around the NRL's inflexibility with regard to game development payments to players.
"Don't take this as an excuse because there are no excuses, but we ran a business that had a dual charter of trying to grow the game and build the Storm," Waldron said.
"We wanted to be successful for ourselves and we wanted to be successful for the NRL [too]. We were a flagship like the Sydney Swans in Sydney.
"We struck a deal with the NRL, I felt, that we would organise to have a game development fund through the ARL's game development ... and we'd get some money out of that to pay players to grow the game down here.
"We did some contracts with players to do that. At the end of the first year when we'd paid the players some of that money we got told by the salary cap auditor that we weren't allowed to do that."
It was at that point that Waldron said the situation "steamrolled" and he felt compelled to continue to honour previous commitments made to players rather than re-do contracts in a bid to stay under the cap.
"I think we felt we had no option and that was wrong," he said.
"I think we felt that was what we needed to do to be successful and that was wrong because we had a great culture with great people.
"We felt obligated because we made some commitments to these players, but that was wrong too because we should have been better and been able to go to those players and explain the situation.
"We probably comforted ourselves and justified our behaviour because we thought others were doing it and that was wrong too. Whether or not they were is irrelevant."
Waldron said he accepted what he did was wrong.
"So I've been deliberately quiet for five years. But I've never been apologetic to those around me that I've told the truth to. We did the wrong thing and I'm very sorry," he said.
When asked why he was finally speaking on the subject Waldron said: "It's about redemption five years on.
"I'd like to try to get some redemption and this is part of it. To apologise and hopefully teach some lessons to others and that's why I now talk publicly, when I do."
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