Football bosses are puzzled by the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission's motive and strategy in drip-feeding the arrests of past and present NRL players in a south-east Queensland cocaine ring, before abruptly truncating the investigation.
The consequent media storm raises questions whether the CCC's initial strategy was politically motivated before widespread speculation of arrests of prominent former players forced it to close the inquiry.
The execution of the arrest warrants hints of a stage-managed event. Why the CCC announced the arrest of three players on February 20 (Karmichael Hunt, Beau Falloon and Jamie Dowling), arrested three more on February 22 (Greg Bird, Dave Taylor and Kalifa Faifai Loa), issued a press release on February 24 giving the clear indication there would be more arrests, then arrested two former Titans players on February 27 (Ashley Harrison and Steve Michaels) mystifies the NRL. At that point, the CCC then said they were done, no more arrests.
Surely a more professional way of doing this would have been to arrest the eight players on February 27 and to announce the immediate investigation ended.
The CCC would still have attracted massive publicity, while avoiding the national speculation and innuendo, fuelled by social media, regarding prominent past players, clubs and codes.
The NRL was forced into a proactive course of asking questions of the Broncos, based on the Brisbane club's close geographical proximity to the cocaine ring and the association of Hunt with their players. The Broncos board followed a similar course. The AFL Suns were asked to come forward if they had been subject to CCC interviews.
The CCC's strategy was either incompetent or designed to dominate media coverage.
If the CCC arrested a few players early in order to ignite an incriminating talkfest on their mobile phones and therefore implicate others, they didn't wait very long to see if was successful. Furthermore, this was the approach taken by the Australian Crime Commission and ASADA in February 2013's "blackest day in Australian sport", and that was a failure.
Lawyers for the football codes will be keeping a close watch on the court lists at Southport Magistrates Court over the next week, given what we have been told about the nature of the cocaine syndicate. Are the only people buying cocaine from these major criminals eight past and present NRL players and one rugby union player recently transferred from AFL? If this is so, the dealers were plying their trade in a very small addressable market.
If the main evidence against the players is phone intercepts, then it must also be the case that multiple conversations and texts were also recorded. Yet of the three press releases on the CCC website, only one of the arrests relate to non-NRL person, a 22-year-old female identified in the February 20 release. Can this really be the only non-NRL person caught in this net, other than Hunt?
The CCC may have misjudged the media frenzy it created. Perhaps they had more targets in other sports and then got cold feet. Maybe the lawyers for the players are correct in what they are saying publicly - the cases are not strong and the CCC has backed off pursuing the other charges because they may not stick.
Finally, there will be a lot of people sweating on the serious charges - John Touma, Matt Seers and Jason Smith. If the cases are as weak as the lawyers say, then there will be significant pressure to firm up the evidence, which would be achieved by a supplier giving evidence for the crown.
The power game and the powder game have been linked for 25 years. The then NSWRL chief, John Quayle, ambushed the Rabbitohs at a training session, testing for illicit drugs. His successor Neil Whittaker sprung a test on all NRL players over a 24-hour period.
If players are slow learners that cocaine is illegal and addictive, it can be argued the CCC hasn't changed its ways. It was formally called the Crime and Misconduct Commission but changed its name to the CCC after Campbell Newman was elected premier. An external review was conducted in 2013 that was not flattering, including a comment that it "failed badly in 'information management' in respect to the Fitzgerald Inquiry documents".
Perhaps, with a new government in power in Queensland, the CCC is also feeling the political blowtorch.
