Dog fight: colourful candidates line up to run wealthy Bulldogs' club
A former bankrupt currently serving a six-year ban from junior rugby league, a man banned for life by the Office of Fair Trading and Gary McIntyre, the architect of the infamous Bulldogs salary cap scandal, are just some of the colourful candidates battling to control the rivers of gold which flow from Canterbury Bankstown Rugby League Club.
On Friday voting opens for candidates who are vying for seven positions on the leagues club board, which generates revenue of $74 million per year from gaming alone.
It is the leagues club which provides the financial muscle to the football club, which runs the Bulldogs’ football team. But in reality it is the football club which controls the leagues club as it gets to appoint four people directly to the board. Effectively, this means that only three positions remain for the members of the leagues club to vote for.
Bulldogs former chief executive Gary McIntyre.
Photo: AAP
One of the most colourful candidates is Elias (Lou) Boutros who was banned for life from operating as a motor dealer after the Office of Fair Trading found he had wound back the odometers on cars he was trying to sell. “Odometers of 21 cars were wound back by 1.46 million kms,” recorded Fair Trading in its 2003 annual report.
Only last month a rebel team led by Lynne Anderson, daughter of the late Bulldog’s patriarch Peter “Bullfrog” Moore, swept to power securing six of the seven positions on the football club board.
Club legend Steve Mortimer, loyal to the old guard led by former chairman Ray Dib, was the only non-rebel member to be re-elected to the football club board. Mr Mortimer, a current member of the league club board, is one of those facing the voters on the weekend after the new board declined to nominate him for one of the four guaranteed positions on the league club.
Arthur J Coorey with Bulldogs legend Steve Mortimer.
Photo: Supplied
Instead, one of those they have chosen is James Marroun, a former bankrupt who is currently banned from any involvement in junior rugby league.
Under the NRL's national code of conduct, Mr Marroun, known as Gabby, was banned in 2014 from holding any official role after an ugly incident where he aggressively abused the referee presiding over a junior league match at Begnell Oval in Belfield. According to the complaint, Mr Marroun also threatened a 14-year-old opposition player saying, “I am going to make sure you get fixed up.”
“What happened back in 2014, on that day, I was no saint. But it didn’t deserve a six-year suspension, it was a one or two-week suspension at most. That’s my opinion,” Mr Marroun said.
A Fairfax Media investigation can also reveal that Mr Marroun, a former carpenter and builder, was bankrupted in 2009. According to this bankruptcy records, Mr Marroun is also known as Jabbour and Gabby.
In 2011 his bankruptcy was extended for a further three years after he failed to provide his bankruptcy trustee with information about his property interests and income. He was discharged from bankruptcy in 2015.
“I didn’t flee the country, I didn’t do a [Salim] Mehajer, I was in the trenches for a long time,” said Mr Marroun of his bankruptcy.
He said he had “learned a lot from the experience” and now has a national recruitment business which has contracts with organisations such as ANZ Stadium and The Star casino.
He also has $30,000 sponsorships with both the Bulldogs and West Tigers.
Mr Marroun, 39, is currently involved in property development with Bulldogs player Michael Lichaa and Josh Reynolds, who left the Bulldogs for West Tigers. Mr Marroun’s wife Enass is a director of MGJ Developments with the two footballers.
Controversially, Mrs Anderson and her husband Chris, a former successful coach with the club, are backing the return of Gary McIntyre, who has the number one position on the ticket.
Mr McIntyre was the driving force behind the club’s salary cap scandal which say the premiership favourites relegated to last place after Fairfax Media exposed his involvement in making secret payments to players.
Not only was the club fined $500,000, it also lost close to $5 million in legal fees, settlement with the Australian Tax Office and penalty payments to Liquor and Gaming.
Although the position on the leagues club board did not attract a salary,
the Herald revealed he and his family had collected close to a million dollars as Mr McIntyre, a suburban lawyer, was charging the football club hefty legal fees. His wife Christine was employed by the league club in administration, his son-in-law was head of maintenance, and his son David was the financial director of the entity behind the controversial Oasis development, a joint project between the Liverpool Council and the Bulldogs.
In his pitch to “make the Bulldogs great again,” Mr McIntyre spoke of this “great relationship” with Lynne and Chris Anderson.
John Ballesty, former general manager of the club.
Photo: Paul Jones
He said he was also “fuelled with enthusiasm by the return of his previous CEO John Ballesty.” Mr Ballesty, who has previously admitted he was aware of the scheme to breach the salary cap, was recently elected to the football club board and is one of the four nominated to the league club board.
Evidence of just how divisive the battle for control of the family-oriented club can be seen by George and Arthur Coorey, both current league club directors, are on the tickets of rival camps. George is on Mr McIntyre’s ticket while his brother is on the ticket of Mr Mortimer and Dr George Peponis.
Both Coorey brothers have been close associates of the now jailed former Labor minister Eddie Obeid.
In his character reference for Obeid at his sentencing, George Coorey spoke of his astonishment that Obeid had been found guilty "knowing his personal qualities and character".
Arthur Coorey was a central witness at a 2002 ICAC inquiry, which examined whether Mr Coorey, at the time a Bulldogs director, had been used by his friend Obeid as a go-between to have Mr McInytre, through the league club, pay the state ALP a $1 million bribe to win the government's approval for the struggling Oasis project.
Bulldogs board member George Coorey.
Photo: Supplied
This suggestion was hotly denied in the witness box by Mr Coorey, who described it as a "horrible lie".
Mr Coorey, Mr McIntyre and Obeid were cleared of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Anthony Lahood, brother in law of Arthur Coorey and a major supplier of meat to the club, will face Lithgow court next month charged with stealing cattle.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...un-wealthy-bulldogs-club-20180315-p4z4k2.html
