Maybe I'm misremembering, as I don't remember the part DABM mentioned about reassigning existing sponsorships - but the conversation was "you can make another $200k in being a brand ambassador for Adelaide businesses." "But what if I don't?" "mate, you will. Have you seen this town? But look - in some fantasy world where you don't, we'll make it up."
There is an email from Harper to Blucher in early 2011, in which Harper says he has ''tipped'' the forward, Dangerfield and captain Nathan van Berlo into an endorsement deal with a construction company owned by former board member Alan Sheppard. These deals were approved by the league at the time, but Harper's use of the word ''tipped'' catches the attention of investigators. Independent agreements are supposed to be just that - not sought, facilitated or set up by clubs.
Read more:
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-tippett-saga-how-it-went-wrong-for-crows-20121128-2aefe.html#ixzz33vMJxB5V
The AFL Commission's findings:
“Thirdly, there was the facilitation by the Adelaide Crows Football Club of three separate side agreements, outside the operation of the TPP rules, for payments to player Tippett in 2011 and 2012, in addition to his standard playing contract and an ASA contract with the Club for promotional work. The facilitation of these agreements occurred across the various years 2009, 2010 and 2011 and did not come to the attention of the AFL until the latter part of this year. As part of this, a number of inaccurate statutory declarations were lodged by the Adelaide Crows with the AFL.”
The delusion from both inside and outside the club focuses on these four myths, and the club is happy to propagate these myths when questioned publicy:
1) The "trade for a second round pick" wasn't really cheating. If anything, it hurt the club by committing to trade him for less than he was worth.
2) We didn't go over the salary cap anyway.
3) The deal got annulled, but Blucher "didn't remember" the conversation so it's just his word against Trigg's.
4) Every other club does it, we just got caught.
1 isn't correct - the gain to us was Tippett's signature in the first place, using an illegal draft/trade guarantee to get him across the line.
2 is irrelevant. We set it up so that we could pay him outside the cap if we needed to, plus we funnelled club sponsor money into his pocket with is another no no.
3 isn't correct either. We continued to honour all conditions of the deal (financial and the trade guarantee), right up until Trigg set off for his European vacation with the parting instruction to Harper to accept a second rounder if push comes to shove.
4 is obviously garbage. Other clubs no doubt are shrewd but manage to do it within the rules, at no time leaving their club liable like we did.