The West Coast Fever has been fined and stripped of premiership points for the 2021 Super Netball season after being found to have breached the salary cap in 2018 and 2019.
The Fever will lose 12 premiership points next year, which is the equivalent of three games.
The club has been fined $300,000, with $150,000 of that suspended, an amount the club will pay if it breaches Total Player Payment rules again anytime in the next three years.
The penalties are unprecedented and by far the biggest handed to any club in the history of Australian netball.
A Super Netball investigation found the breaches involved undisclosed contracts, with the Fever making payments of more than $127,000 above the Total Player Payment cap in 2018, and more than $168,000 in 2019.
It means the club was almost 20 per cent above the salary cap in 2018, and 25 per cent in 2019.
Super Netball Commission chair Marina Go said the unprecedented nature of the penalties reflected the gravity of the Fever's actions.
"There is no room for this behaviour within our sport and the Commission is disappointed to have to hand down these sanctions," she said.
No players aware of breaches
The 2018 season was a breakthrough one for the Fever, with the club earning the right to host the grand final for the first time, going down to Sunshine Coast in front of more than 13,000 fans at a sold-out Perth Arena.
The club qualified for a second grand final in 2020, falling by two goals against the Melbourne Vixens, but now faces an uphill battle to remain competitive in 2021.
The odds appear to be stacked against the Fever to even qualify for the finals next year, given it finished just eight points ahead of fifth spot in 2020.
Super Netball said the Fever fully cooperated with the investigation once it was identified there was a breach.
The investigation found no evidence that any players were aware of the breaches, and no current coaches were involved in organising payments through undisclosed contracts.
But both the club and the league refused to identify the people responsible, citing the confidentiality of the report.
The Fever admitted it was a devastating day for the club, and said it would conduct a review of its structure to ensure breaches never happened again.
In a statement the Fever said it had let down its members, staff, players, partners and fans.
