{"id":685206,"date":"2026-05-21T13:15:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/685206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T13:15:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:15:35","slug":"cricket-nrl-investigate-staffer-amid-cricket-australia-redundancies-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/685206\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket, NRL investigate staffer amid Cricket Australia redundancies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Save<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-d1b14060-4 JmUoF\">You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n<p>Remove items from your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/goodfood\/saved\" class=\"sc-3f16ee48-12 sc-d1b14060-2 jyLmZI iQLtAb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n<p>AAA<\/p>\n<p>Cricket Australia is concluding an investigation following whistleblower allegations that a senior staffer, formerly employed by the NRL, commissioned contracts totalling more than $600,000 to a company they were personally associated with.<\/p>\n<p>The whistleblower complaints, seen by this masthead, arrived amid a fresh round of redundancies at CA, with about 20 staff departing the organisation in March and April, after around 15 lost their jobs in July last year.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cricket Australia headquarters in Melbourne.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/bdd8c8643521521b9c9a5dd972ea514b75966d23.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ldCIuB\"\/>Cricket Australia headquarters in Melbourne.Getty Images <\/p>\n<p>The staffer has also been investigated by the NRL integrity unit in relation to their former employment at rugby league headquarters.<\/p>\n<p>CA confirmed an independent investigation of the complaints raised by the whistleblower in a statement: \u201cWe are aware of the claims and they are currently being independently reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NRL was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s pick<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/sport\/cricket\/it-was-eye-opening-why-ollie-peake-skipped-the-queue-for-australia-20260520-p5zyw0.html\" tabindex=\"-1\" class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Young gun Ollie Peake has been picked in Australia\u2019s ODI squad.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/24dbb765c8cb92290169ff0e7cd9a17b0f17b739.jpeg\"  class=\"sc-d34e428-1 ioInpc\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The whistleblower report, first reported by Michael West Media, alleges that in March 2025, the staffer registered a company in NSW and listed themselves as director and shareholder.<\/p>\n<p>Another company was registered in NSW in November 2025. A close associate of the staffer was named as a director. ASIC was informed that this associate resigned as a director and secretary of the initial company on February 16, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Two days later, on February 18, Cricket Australia made its first purchase order to one of the companies in question. The purchase order as approved by the staffer in question on February 19. The whistleblower alleges that these purchase orders now amount to more than $600,000 in payments.<\/p>\n<p>In related allegations, the whistleblower claims that the staffer was introduced to CA by a senior figure at the organisation, raising questions of due process regarding recruitment, reference checks and screening of prospective employees.<\/p>\n<p>Since then, the whistleblower alleges, two other former NRL staffers have been hired to join CA in the same department overseen by the staffer.<\/p>\n<p>News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. <a class=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/newsletter-signup?newsletter=sport&amp;utm_source=EditorialArticle&amp;utm_medium=ArticleText&amp;utm_campaign=Newsletters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for our Sport newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Save<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-d1b14060-4 JmUoF\">You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n<p>Remove items from your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/goodfood\/saved\" class=\"sc-3f16ee48-12 sc-d1b14060-2 jyLmZI iQLtAb\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Daniel Brettig\" data-testid=\"author-avatar-image\" height=\"40\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774855031_693_bf4c86786d7aea7377942b26f6887332223e1e92.png\"  width=\"40\" class=\"sc-9a01536c-0 libeSR\"\/><a class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm sc-b5b9fd03-2 jcGta-D\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/by\/daniel-brettig-p4ywcj\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Brettig<\/a> is The Age&#8217;s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via <a class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm sc-b5b9fd03-5 czsZcI\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/danbrettig?lang=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a>.<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Chris Barrett\" data-testid=\"author-avatar-image\" height=\"40\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769322851_66_ee71cb37d4c9fcd432bc0a75a0130cfa154694ad.png\"  width=\"40\" class=\"sc-9a01536c-0 libeSR\"\/><a class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm sc-b5b9fd03-2 jcGta-D\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/by\/chris-barrett-hveam\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Barrett<\/a> is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former South-East Asia correspondent for the Herald and The Age.Connect via <a class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm sc-b5b9fd03-5 czsZcI\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChrisBarrett_?lang=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> or <a class=\"sc-cba76dee-0 hdiTqm sc-b5b9fd03-5 czsZcI\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/sport\/cricket\/mailto:chris.barrett@smh.com.au\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-685206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}