Not saying I condone what happened, but have a look at the sums......
Hidden payments of $1.7 Million, over 5 years, including $700k this year. that means $1 million over 4 years. That is $250k per year. Lets say that was spread over 10 players, thats $25k per player.
Dunno how much the salaries of NRL players are, but $25k per playe doesn't seem very much.
But yes, it is about the principle of the issue, the deceptiveness of the organisation, the numbers of years it has occured.
Who I really feel bad for are the fans who supported the team, not knowing or caring about the $ situation, and also the players who probably would not kno wthe extent to which it was occurring.......though they should know. Well, they probably got an external payment, maybe not much so don't really think about it, but if it happens to one player, quite rightly they should suspect it would also be happening to another player on the team and so really as a player in an organisation they probably knew something was up, but then again, they could just have their agents and lawyers negotiate everything and so they were none the wiser, just following their advice.