Auditing and crisis management: The 2010 Melbourne Storm salary cap scandal

Annexing new audit spaces: challenges and adaptations

“…In other cases, legitimacy can be embodied in characteristics of the individual provider -deep experience in the field and extensive social networking with other powerful actors -rather than a disembodied Big-4 PSF brand. This has resulted in some new audit spaces such as salary cap audits in professional sport (Andon and Free, 2012;, and baseball card certification (Jamal and Sunder, 2011) being marked out, defined and colonised by non-accounting actors.…”

“…As with sustainability assurance and efficiency audits, strategic advice may also emerge in new audit/assurance reporting in response to demands from users less concerned about independence when this advice is seen to enhance the quality (relevance and reliability) of the information on which they seek to rely (see also, Andon and Free, 2012). The recent user-focused experiment by KPMG, in its financial audit report for Rolls Royce Holdings plc, may also signify more openness among …”

“…A recurring image in this work has been the powerful professional elite proactively and strategically commodifying and colonizing adjacent professional jurisdictions deemed to be commercially significant (Suddaby and Greenwood, 2001). New audit spaces offer an interesting window into this phenomenon, reflecting areas where a mature, hierarchical audit field intersects with other fields such as sport (see Andon and Free (2012) in relation to salary cap auditing), government (see Radcliffe (1998) in relation to value-for-money auditing), the environment (see O'Dwyer et al (2011) in relation to sustainability assurance) and higher education (see Wedlin (2007) in relation to university rankings). In these intersections, new institutional infrastructure is created that draws heavily on the mature audit field.…”

Surveillance, Governance and Professional Sport

“…Inadequate transparency in communication flows between coaches and club administrators was considered to compromise athlete welfare in this case. Such deficits in information flow also apply outside of athlete competition, and are evident in other contentious examples of club or League governance, including the use of recreational drugs by athletes, the posting of contentious statements or photographs on social media sites, rowdy or violent behaviour in nightclubs or financial dealings with the potential to violate established audit requirements (Andon and Free 2012). Such violations are commonly deterred through the threat of internal club or League deregistration, bans and contract revocations for behaviour that could also lead to the instigation of criminal prosecutions by external regulatory authorities.…”

“…Sports Leagues can investigate 'all correspondence', including email communications, computer files, financial records and other electronic data associated with business activities of their affiliated member clubs (Gullan 2013;Andon and Free 2012;NRL 2011). However, the publication of seemingly confidential communications between athletes, coaches and a leading sport scientist considered by many to have engineered this scandal generated minimal public scrutiny.…”