NRL chief executive David Gallop has ruled out allowing Melbourne Storm players taking "wholesale pay cuts" to get back under the salary cap for 2011.
In the wake of an independent forensic investigation released on Thursday revealing the full extent of the Storm's systematic cheating between 2006 and 2010, Gallop says he is willing to work with the club's new management to get them under the cap for next season - but not with across-the-board pay cuts.
The investigation confirmed the club would be $1.325 million over the cap next season meaning the club is likely to need to shed some of its stars to get back in line with the rest of the competition.
But News Limited chairman John Hartigan - who also revealed the four independent Storm directors currently suing the NRL had been sacked - says the club was hopeful of keeping the big four of Billy Slater, Cameron Smith, Greg Inglis and Cooper Cronk together.
But while Gallop says he was open to allowing contracts to be reworked, undoing years of salary cap cheating at the club could not be solved by just taking pay cuts.
"Clubs can't be allowed to take players out of the market with huge offers one year and then cover things up with pay cuts the next," he said.
"There are provisions for contracts to be renegotiated and for terms to be extended but that is a complicated process and requires total transparency."
"We'll be looking at it in a way which is fair to all clubs but wholesale pay cuts are not going to be the answer to this problem."
"You need to look at the salary cap at the point at which players are on the market and when one clubs offer takes another clubs offer out of play."
"That’s the relevant point of measuring the salary cap. It doesn’t solve that problem by simply taking away some of the money."
Gallop also backed the NRL penalties imposed on the Storm back on April 22, despite the forensic audit by Deloitte' uncovering the breaches over the last five years amounted to $3.17 million, almost double than the NRL's initial estimate.
"We've done our investigation and found breaches and we acted on them," he said.
"This is a report into the methods that were used by Storm management so the Storm's owners could understand that."
"Yes we're interested in it but we've taken our action and we're 100 percent comfortable with it."
Gallop said the decision by the players and player managers not to co-operate with Deloitte's investigation was "disappointing."
He also is totally convinced players from the Storm didn't know what was going on at the club.
"Alarm bells should have been ringing in any situation where you have to sign two contracts," Gallop said.
Gallop says he hoped the Storm's four independent directors - headed by chairman Rob Moodie - would now drop the legal action against the NRL after it stripped the club of its 2007 and 2009 premierships.