Source : the age
The Macarthur Bulls A-League franchise spent thousands of taxpayers’ dollars earmarked for after-school football clinics on a luxury residential apartment complex.
Facing a parliamentary inquiry established to examine the Football in Schools program, the embattled Bulls on Wednesday launched an aggressive counterattack, claiming a draft auditors’ report critical of the Department of Education administration of the program had been removed.
The most recent revelation compounds allegations the club misspent the $6 million in taxpayer funds. Weeks after the Herald discovered club staff had spent thousands of dollars on restaurants, cafes and alcohol, Macarthur offered to repay $3415.93 it claimed had been “incorrectly coded”. The club’s spending will undergo a forensic audit by McGrathNicol, an advisory firm.
However, the club’s expenditure records reveal taxpayer funds may have been used for residential rental payments. Expenditure statements show a $3033.76 BPAY payment made to Lateral Residences – a collection of “resort-style” apartments located in Zetland, Liverpool and Wolli Creek – in early 2024 was attributed to the program, with Macarthur classifying it as “HO rental”.
Macarthur was approached for comment.
A departmental spokesman noted the ongoing forensic audit, saying: “The department has the right to withhold, or recover, grants funding if compliance with the funding deed is not addressed.”
The discovery compounds concerns that large sums of taxpayer funds supposed to pay for school and holiday clinics in south-western Sydney have instead been spent underwriting the club’s commercial operation and on expenses unrelated to the program.
The club previously apportioned $148,941.54 of taxpayer funds to Titanium Waste Management – a company of which the Macarthur Bulls chairman Gino Marra and chief executive Sam Krslovic are shareholders – for head office rental in Oran Park.
As it acknowledged misspending taxpayer funds, Macarthur used Wednesday’s inquiry hearing to blame the program’s administrative mishaps on the department, urging the committee to recommend the Football in Schools program be “preserved, continued and expanded”.
“The administrative problems that have attracted attention are, overwhelmingly, the consequence of how the Department of Education established, funded and administered this program,” the club said in a submission to the inquiry.
Macarthur claimed they were told by bureaucrats the department never wanted to administer the program, and complained the club was unjustly barred from spending funds on items such as coaches uniforms. The department had deemed Macarthur’s $100,000 outlay on coaches’ uniforms and sneakers was non-eligible.
Asked to provide evidence to substantiate claims, Peter McLaughlin, club’s government relations manager, who fronted the inquiry in the absence of Marra, said he was unable to reproduce evidence about the department’s unwillingness to run the program because the claims had only been conveyed verbally. Requests for copies of the original audit were also taken on notice.
In later evidence, departmental secretary Murat Dizdar categorically rejected the claims. A departmental audit executive said the only edits made to Grant Thornton’s audit report were altering capital letters and wording, denying any material of substance was changed.
“I’m not only rejecting it. I’m requesting that they look at the draft, and they look at the final, which is in the public domain,” Dizdar said.
In an opening statement, Dizdar said the forensic audit had been commissioned after insufficient information was received from the club.
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Max Maddison is a state political reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.
