Ex-Storm chairman Rob Moodie and former director Peter Maher are to lodge a submission with the current NRL administration to re-examine the Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal, 10 years after the fact.
The Sydney Morning Herald, reports the former Storm officials are planning to lobby the NRL over the severity of the penalties amid legal advice that suggests the NRL did not abide by its own rules.
The Storm isn't denying they breached salary cap but believe the extent of the penalty was extreme compared to the far lighter consequences in later salary cap scandals involving the Eels and Sharks.
The Herald reports that Moodie was advised in 2018 that the NRL didn't follow their own protocols regarding breaches, which required it to hand out the allegations in a breach notice and give the Storm five days to provide written submissions.
Instead, the task of issuing the breach notice, charging the club and handing down a sanction was completed in "an afternoon's work", according to sports lawyer Darren Kane.
The news comes after Storm great Cameron Smith and former NRL CEO David Gallop traded shots over the salary cap scandal after the Storm skipper revealed his frustration with how the NRL handled the drama in his book The Storm Within.
"When people ask me who I'm most angry with for what happened they generally think I'll say (CEO) Brian Waldron but it's not… My anger is mainly directed at the NRL for the penalties they handed down and the way the whole matter was handled. And for that I blame David Gallop," he wrote.
"By punishing us before undertaking a thorough investigation Gallop put the players in a position they should never have been in. It allowed the media to give the public the idea we had knowledge of what happened. We were hung out to dry by the boss of the game."
In a News Corp column, Gallop denied the claims and said the allegations were "plain wrong", stating the Storm were under investigation for an extended period of time.
Gallop also wrote in the column that "Moodie specifically asked for us to get it over and done with."
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