As we have seen repeatedly over the last decade the NRL love giving teams a NRL-assisted turn of winning a premiership, especially teams who haven't won one for a while, to keep interest in the game in that region and also give the false impression that it is a very fair and even competition. Got a feeling Penrith is the chosen club at this point, it's been nearly 2 decades since they've won a title. The NRL will quite happily turn a blind eye to anything that the Panthers may do salary cap-wise until they win a comp.
Quite a few of their players are surely due massive upgrades on current contracts, impossible to keep a roster together under those circumstances unless something underhand (or under table) is going on.