Stripped: The Storm's Billy Slater and Brett Finch holding aloft the Premiership trophy last year. Picture: STEVE CHRISTO

The NRL has stripped Melbourne Storm of two premierships, as well as any competition points this season, in the heaviest punishment for a salary cap breach in NRL history.NRL chief David Gallop has just announced the extradordinary penalty, after it was uncovered that the club paid $1.7 million to its players outside the cap in the past five years.The Storm has been stripped of its premierships in 2007 and 2009, three minor premierships and their eight competition points this season. They will not be able to accrue any more points this season, have been fined $500,000 and must pay back $1.1m in prize money.

YOUR SAY: What do you think of the Melbourne Storm scandal?"The elaborate lengths that they went to hide the payments was quite extraordinary," Gallop said. "These payments have allowed them to recruit and retain some of the best players in the game. There's no alternative for the NRL in terms of penalty."Gallop said that the club had run a long-term system of "two sets of books"."This morning the Storm representatives have come in and confessed to a well-organised system of paying players outside the cap. On what we know this amounted to $1.7m in the last five years, including approximately $700,000 in 2010."The breakthrough in the investigation was the discovery by the salary cap auditor [Ian Schubert] and his team of a file in a separate room at the Storm to the room that contained the file with the players' contracts."

Source: smh.com.auFOR FULL COVERAGE SEE FRIDAY'S MERCURY

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Storm stripped of two premierships

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