David Gallop - Disgusting

[Diehard_Storm]

Here is my letter to the NRL. I cc'd in the Storm as well as Richard Hines from fairfax as he's the only journalist I know who shares his email...

Date: Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Subject: An email for David Gallop
To: "reception@NRL.com.au" <reception@nrl.com.au>
Cc: ">" <rhinds@smh.com.au>, "info@melbournestorm.com.au" <info@melbournestorm.com.au>


Dear David,

As a long time rugby league fan, and Melbourne Storm member, I'm writing to express my extreme disappointment in your comments likening 'passionate' Storm supporters to terrorists.

I was just one of the 15,000 Storm supporters there on Sunday.   I'm glad to say I was also booing you with every ounce of my being.  I certainly wasn't alone David.  As passionate as we are in support of our beloved team, nothing has quite roused our voices like your presence that afternoon - not poor refereeing decisions, not a cheap shot by an opposition player, not even the much maligned Denis Fitzgerald.  No David, you've outdone them all.

You clearly live on a different planet.  It's hard to fathom just how you came to be so disconnected from a sport upon which passion is ingrained in every fibre of it's makeup and it's rich history.

Your analogy was poorly chosen and appallingly timed.  Your actions have brought this game into more disrepute and connected more painfully than any mis-timed punch thrown by Adam Blair or Glen Stewart.  I'm sure more parents and corporates are appalled by your actions in the last 48 hours than any of the brawlers on that Brookvale night.  

You fined the two clubs $100,000 with hardly a punch landed and refused to announce any worthy cause to which those funds would be directed.  Perhaps the new board might consider fining you a similar amount and put those proceeds towards the victims of the Bali bombings? Just a thought, David.  I'm sure they in particular found your comments offensive.  Try telling them they took it wrong. Some apology.

Your assertion that the Storm fans who booed you, must support the cheats that almost destroyed our proud club, shows again a stunning lack of insight and judgement.  Far from supporting those 'rats in the ranks', most Storm fans accept the penalties.  What we don't accept is the long list of grievances.  Something you might have better understood if you even bothered to address it earlier.

1.  There is plenty of doubt on whether you followed due process before handing down the punishments.
2.  The punishments did nothing but penalize severely the victims of the crimes - the players, coaches and the fans.
3.  To this day, not a single individual implicated in your very own 'internal investigation' has seen any charge.  
4.  The player agents whom you allege to be clearly implicit in the rorting continue to work and negotiate contracts in and amongst every NRL club to this day.
5.  Peter O'Sullivan continues to get paid working in the NRL for the Rooster despite the NRL clearly implicating him in the rorts.  As a side note - it was interesting to see Peter at the game on Sunday.  He was in the stands not far from the coaches box when you presented the shield.  Strangely it looked to me like he enjoyed the reception you received.  Perhaps you could have asked him to make the presentation and thus avoided (again) the situation.
6.  That it's taken 18 months for you to attend a Storm game.  And don't use the invite excuse.  Your the CEO and Melbourne is a critical market.  You should have bit the bullet and addressed this much earlier than now.  I think Manly fans can relate.

What the Storm have achieved this year is incredible.  A remarkable feat against the odds, regardless if you hand them the trophy in Sydney or not.  Surely rather than using their performance as continued justification for your punishments, if anything, its only firmed the opinion of many that the success of the Storm in recent years had little to do with the maligned cap, but more to do with hard work, great coaching, a healthy culture and just maybe...some good old fashioned passion.

Not that you'd know or appreciate any of this.  Your lack of passion is as obvious as your insecurity and your insatiable need to defend yourself.  Even Julia Gillard has a higher approval rating than you.  And that's not very high, David.

Over the years we've grown tired of your awkwardness. The lack of any strategic direction.  The crappy tv rights you 'negotiated' which mean late nights/early mornings courtesy of Channel 9 (use it or lose it? Seriously David), cramming into dingy pubs and having to ask the publican if we could "please sir, could we please have a little more sound for the league game...", or playing the "find the crappy Internet stream" just to get some pathetic chance to watch the code we love, by an inconvenient channel of our (limited) choice.  What does the N stand or again?  No Rugby League perhaps.

It's hard to fathom how you got the job.  It's impossible to fathom how you'll keep it.  Surely the new independent board must have an obligation to recruit the best possible CEO for this next vital chapter in rugby league?  Then again...maybe it's just another sad example of "it's not what you know...but who you know"?

Mick Malthouse said it best recently.  He observed that the Storm have excelled despite the assistance of it's governing body.  The same however can be said for the rest of the competition.  A great legacy looms.

I dare say you might want to work on developing a thicker skin.  If you thought getting booed on Sunday was so unpleasant, I wonder how you'll cope the next time you visit?

[ Post made via iPad ]

[Surandy]

Gallop's worst nightmare:

Melbourne Storm vs Manly Sea Eagles Grand final.

[Diehard_Storm]

Could you imagine if it was Storm v Broncos?

gallop might as well just deck himself out in broncos gear and a "I love Lockyer" sign, he will be that desperate for a Broncos win. It would make it all the more sweeter to see his ugly shit-eating grin whence hands Cam the trophy,

[ Post made via iPad ]

[Diehard_Storm]

Wow...just watched the Back Page and not only did they fully support Gallop, they said said Storm fans need to get over it. Paul Kent from the news Ltd owned Telecrap then went on the warpath and accused the players of being knowingly guilty in the rorts and that it was the 'players fault'. He said "I have idiot Melbourne fans ring me...they (the players) cheated...systematic proven cheaters...to which they confessed to...those fans and Ron Gauci need to take ownership and admit we cheated."

The other twerp Robbert Craddock then added "the players got off lightly. Their crimes were worse than Mark Waugh's and Shane Warne's giving illegal info to bookies. They (the players) blatantly broke it...and I've never believed one word the players said".

Wow. Considering the players were cleared by the NRL's own internal investigation and The Deloitte/News Ltd investigation...I'd say the players have a clear case for defamation here

[ Post made via iPad ]

[JF_Storm_Swans]

Wow...just watched the Back Page and not only did they fully support Gallop, they said said Storm fans need to get over it. Paul Kent from the news Ltd owned Telecrap then went on the warpath and accused the players of being knowingly guilty in the rorts and that it was the 'players fault'. He said "I have idiot Melbourne fans ring me...they (the players) cheated...systematic proven cheaters...to which they confessed to...those fans and Ron Gauci need to take ownership and admit we cheated."

The other twerp Robbert Craddock then added "the players got off lightly. Their crimes were worse than Mark Waugh's and Shane Warne's giving illegal info to bookies. They (the players) blatantly broke it...and I've never believed one word the players said".

Wow. Considering the players were cleared by the NRL's own internal investigation and The Deloitte/News Ltd investigation...I'd say the players have a clear case for defamation here

[ Post made via iPad ]

The Back Page is normally my favourite show. When I heard this drivel from typical agenda driven News Limited goons like Paul Kent, I turned the TV off.

It is THAT time of year again folks.

JF

[Surandy]

One positive from this saga, it's made me want to watch Team America again.

"Hey Gallop! Terrorise this!!!"

[stormy]

I thought paul(I hate Storm) kent was going to far in his angry tirade on Storm fans and club. HE WILL NEVER SAY ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT US. It would have been interesting if giddyup said it about a sydney club.
Cameron Smith was right "This will fire up our supporters.

[Itzbek the Purple]

I think Kent was one of the people who wanted us to be disbanded at the height of the cap fiasco

[waveydavey]

Blunderstorm, but commission boss stands by chief

http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/leag ... 1k7we.html

Grant said one of the things he wanted to ensure under the independent commission was clubs involved in issues such as salary cap breaches taking greater responsibility for their actions and making it clear to their supporters why penalties had been imposed.

''I would hope … that we would have a greater understanding by all parties concerned of the reasons for decisions being made and the actual decisions, and would accept their responsibility to live by the decisions that are made and put them into practice,'' he said. ''What putting them into practice could mean is that club administrators would actually be talking to their stakeholders, including their fans, about why it is right for them to accept decisions and why they should move on.''

ARL chairman John Chalk defended Gallop's comments. ''I believe that David was trying to make a point,'' Chalk said. ''He could have used a better line but it is a fact of life the Storm were cheating the salary caps, so what do people want?''

FFS - they really don't get it, not one of them!!!

Mr Grant - we accept the Storm cheated the cap, won't we don't accept is the process in which penalty decisions were made, and the harshness of the decisions to remove the 2006 & 2007 minor premierships and 2007 Premiership - other teams have been over the cap to similar amounts and have been allowed to keep their points/trophies. When the NRL explain the penalties fully to the fans then we can make our own minds up on the fairness of them - we don't need the Melbourne Storm to explain why we should move on - we just need some respect from the NRL as paying supporters!!!

Mr Chalk - how about a bit of transparency mate? It certainly wouldn't go a miss in an age where snap decisions are made on a regular basis by the CEO, who is by anyone's terms reactive, inconsistent, and from this last episode, insecure!!!

[Diehard_Storm]

This today from Richard Hines:

How quickly Gallop the errorist fell from moral high ground
Richard Hinds
September 14, 2011

NRL's David Gallop's terrorist analogy
NRL boss David Gallop upset Storm fans by using a terrorist analogy when describing their passion for the game in a radio interview with Crocmedia's Sports Day Queensland.

There were some obvious things for David Gallop to mention during a cosy chat on an obscure Queensland radio station. The record attendance for the first week of the finals; that the NRL play-offs had attracted a greater total average national television audience than the AFL (2,450,000 to 2,239, 000).

However, as anyone with more media training than a newborn chimpanzee featuring in a promotional photograph at Taronga Zoo should have known, putting the words ''Melbourne Storm fans'' and ''terrorists'' in the same postcode - let alone the same sentence - was not exactly staying ''on message''.

At the risk of letting the facts get in the way of a good story, Gallop did not call Storm fans terrorists. He merely used a disastrously provocative comparison between the passion that motivates cold-blooded murderers to throw bombs, and that which motivated the Storm fans to throw some harsh names - but not a single stick or stone - his way on Sunday afternoon.

But, of course, to use that allusion - especially with September 11 commemorations still fresh in the mind - was on the suicidal side of careless. As Gallop should have known, the precious little subtlety in his comparison was instantly lost on literal-minded elements of the media, and Storm supporters.

Indeed, given the chief executive's already poisonous reputation in Melbourne, he might as well have referred to the Storm's big three as Osama Bin Slater, Yasser Smith and Carlos ''The Jackal'' Cronk. Some laboured attempts by Gallop to explain his comparison on Melbourne radio, and a qualified apology, only poured petrol on an inferno fuelled by a hostile local media.

As Gallop knew long before he was jeered while presenting the JJGiltinan Shield, he is in a no-win situation in Melbourne. Storm fans blame him for what some insist were harsh measures taken against the club. They blame him for not coming to Melbourne to explain the penalties immediately, even if, as Gallop has claimed several times, he was told to stay away. They blame him for Channel Nine's refusal to show Storm games at a reasonable hour. Gallop has not yet gone on the record about global warming, John Farnham's ''comeback'' tour or the taste of light beer. But they probably blame him for that, too. In the face of such unequivocal, and somewhat irrational, antipathy Gallop's best weapon was silence. And, when he walked back down the tunnel after being ritually humiliated on Sunday, the chief executive retained his dignity. It was the abusive fans who seemed out of step with reality. Time, and their brilliant team, had moved on.

Then, in one utterance, Gallop tumbled from the moral high ground so quickly he made Jack and Jill look like Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing. As misguided as his use of the T-word, Gallop's dismissal of the passion displayed by Storm supporters also made him seem aloof and out of touch with the sentiments of fans.

As Gallop suggested, passion is sometimes used as a justification for atrocities committed in the grandstands - particularly by obnoxious, drunk and violent fans who make life a misery for others. No doubt, recent visits to Brookvale Oval and AAMI Park were unpleasant experiences for a chief executive who maintains that, in his treatment of Melbourne and Manly, he has merely guarded the game's integrity.

Yet, the abuse to which Gallop was subjected seemed no more harsh or vitriolic than that which referees, and visiting teams, receive on a weekly basis. In that sense, passion is part of the essence of spectator sports. It allows supporters to believe, for 80 precious minutes, that a bunch of large chaps chasing a leather sack is, as the saying goes, more important than life and death. The noise of a passionate throng is what elevates the atmosphere at a football game above that of a chess tournament or a flower show.

The passion unleashed by Storm fans has played into the NRL's favour. A team once marginalised in Melbourne has been embraced by local fans far more warmly since the salary cap scandal. The pretext of persecution upon which the passion is based might be flimsy, but it has sold tickets. All Gallop had to do was bite his lip. Instead, it was he who deserved to be compared with terrorists. With one poorly chosen word, the boss bombed.

rhinds@smh.com.au

[Go Storm]

Take that middle paragraph out and that's not a bad article. I wonder if the editor added that section? It flows differently to the rest of the piece like it was penned by a different author?
Definately better than some of the other press we've been getting from Shitney!

[stormy]

As Matpoet said there was no mention of money and brown paper bags at Canberra, or the misery of a little boy from a feral parra crowd, or the Sydney Sun Heralds 'cheaters' posters issued befor I think the Tigers game.

Just who the *lima lima lima duck* does he think he is the egotist bastard?! All of a sudden we're terrorists. WTF
There were even some dickheads at Parra Stadium this year yelling "cheaters".

Hadley's been a wanker and John Howard was booed off stage at the MCG. A message to D.Gallop: don't *lima lima lima duck* with a Victorian and expect to get away with it

[ Post made via iPhone ]

the posters were printed out for the tens of thousands(but only 6500 turned up cos a little bit of rain scared them away spose it was the wrong time of the week for a bath) of crappamatta supporters to take to the game against Storm last season( the one where they abused an 8 yr old boy cos he wore his Storm jersey PROUDLY to their ground) .

[storm77]

By the way not all of us accept the penalties.

I have always said, whether caught or not, that you have to also take away every premiership won by the broncos and by the raiders back in the day when the salary cap was first introduced.

The fact is no star studded team is held together legally within the F****** cap. It isn't possible.

[Bourbon Rat]

Thankfully the players are not being distracted by the continual bait,(crap) thrown around by the northern,(News Ltd controlled) media

Point 1 : Melbourne Storm are minor premiers
Point 2 : Melbourne Storm are through to week three,(preliminary finals)
Point 3 : That game is being played at our HOME GROUND

NOTHING said - printed - inferred - by anyone in the media,(or Gallop n Co),can alter those three points.

IMHO - To continue feeding this thread is as pointless as said media,etc.

[Go Storm]

Oh, and Gallop changed the rules relating to 3rd party payments instead of auditing and punishing all clubs.
What Storm did is now perfectly legal.

[ Post made via iPhone ]