Ryan Pendlebury speaks out on five-match ban for Euroa Football Club salary cap breach

The football club self-reported the breach in March this year, claiming it had no prior knowledge of the secret cash handouts. But Pendlebury disagreed. He said the money was given to him by two members of the Euroa Football Club’s sponsorship committee, who have since verified the claim, and he had always assumed it was on the books. Ryan Pendlebury, right, flies to spoil a pack mark for Port Melbourne. Credit: Getty Images Despite this, he was charged by Goulburn Murray as a “club official” under the AFL National Community Football Policy Handbook. No other “club official” was charged. “I was obviously disappointed,” Pendlebury says. “But I was more disappointed when I found out they got nothing, basically.”

Loading Euroa Football Club president Scott Watson, who was named Goulburn Valley League’s administrator of the year in September 2024, was contacted for comment. Cash handouts Ryan Pendlebury is the youngest of three brothers who grew up in a sport-mad family in Sale. While he shared a love of basketball with middle brother Scott, he didn’t reach the same football heights.

Loading A personal trainer and Rookie Me coach, he played VFL with Collingwood, Port Melbourne and Werribee before joining Euroa Football Club in 2023 and becoming coach the following year. It was then, the Goulburn Murray tribunal heard, that he was approached by two members of the club’s sponsorship committee – Scott Embling and Scott Trotter. They told the new coach they had cash for sign-on fees to attract recruits. Some of that cash became the subject of the salary cap breach. Neither Embling nor Trotter were charged by the league, or accused of any wrongdoing. Trotter and Embling were hardly hidden figures who were operating in the shadows.

Both were hard-working former Euroa Football Club committee members and long-time supporters who had turned their hands to the thankless task of fundraising. What Pendlebury did not know, he said, was that they were acting outside the confines of the club’s committee. “The two guys I got the money off, they were in charge of fundraising money for the club, so I assumed that they were a part of the committee and organising the player money,” he said. “I was just recruiting players.” Both Trotter and Embling agreed in statutory declarations, signed in Euroa Police station on May 7 this year, that they first approached Pendlebury and that they did hand over cash.

“The money was given to Ryan on behalf of Euroa supporters to assist him in recruiting players to the club to play and was on behalf of the football club,” Embling said in his statutory declaration. “This money I gave to Ryan was to use for recruitment.” But disputes later emerged over how much cash was handed to Yousif. Trotter and Embling said it was between $4000 and $4500, Pendlebury said it was $3500, while Yousif initially said it was $2000. Ryan Pendlebury began his VFL career with Collingwood. Credit: Getty Images Pendlebury told Del Monte’s investigation that he assumed the money would be declared in the player declaration form that Yousif co-signed with the Euroa president. Embling declined to comment when contacted by this masthead, while Trotter was contacted for comment.

AFLW commitment Euroa scraped their way into the final six in 2024 with nine wins and nine losses under Pendlebury’s guidance, but not before hitting a salary cap speed hump during the season. After 11 rounds, the club realised it was going to break its $130,000 limit and asked players to take a 50 per cent pay cut for the rest of the year, the Goulburn Murray tribunal was told. Two players wanted out and were granted clearances, while the rest of the group signed new player declaration forms that outlined their reduced pay structures. By round 18, the club had balanced its books and returned the players to their original payments. A third set of player declaration forms were signed for the year.

Ryan Pendlebury trains with Collingwood’s VFL side in 2016. Credit: Getty Images Euroa lost their elimination final to Rochester by 25 points – coach Pendlebury booted two of their 11 goals and Yousif kicked three. Buoyed by the success, the club moved quickly to reappoint Pendlebury on his $40,000 a year salary – half of which sits outside the cap under Goulburn Murray rules. But circumstances changed when he landed an assistant coaching role with North Melbourne’s AFLW outfit. He said he could not properly fulfil both roles and resigned as Euroa coach in October. “The club congratulates 2024 football coach Ryan Pendlebury on the wonderful opportunity he has been rewarded with at North Melbourne,” Euroa posted on their Facebook page. The late notice left Euroa scrambling for a replacement and former coach Dave Gleeson agreed to fill the role without pay for 12 months to help the club reset the following year.

Alarm bells As new coach Gleeson went about trying to entice back the 2024 playing group, including the Werribee-based Pendlebury in a non-coaching role, a phone call with Yousif set off alarm bells. The exciting small forward alleged he was still owed $3000 by the club, according to Del Monte’s review. It was then that Gleeson, a federal police officer, began inquiries of his own. His probe led to the discovery of two undisclosed cash payments that Trotter and Embling had handed to Pendlebury, who was then to pass it on to Yousif.

But because this money was not on their books, Euroa were forced in March this year to self-report a breach. “It was stated by Euroa officials that the club had no knowledge of the payment of monies by Ryan Pendlebury, on behalf of the club, to player Silver Yousif,” Del Monte wrote in his findings. But Pendlebury said it was common for officials to pay the players in cash. He said after home games, an official would walk around the change rooms handing out match payments in envelopes containing money. “You don’t know what it’s in it – it could be $10,000, it could be $5. It’s just an envelope,” Pendlebury said

“That’s why I said it didn’t raise alarms to me that I was getting an envelope of cash [from Embling and Trotter] to pass on [to recruits]. Because everyone gets paid in cash.” Footballing brothers Ryan and Scott Pendlebury. Credit: Getty Images Story changed Neither Embling nor Trotter explained in their statutory declarations why they did not report to the club committee. Both claimed it was Pendlebury’s responsibility to keep records of payments.

“Ryan was the senior coach and as far as I was aware managed the playing budget on behalf of the club,” Embling said. Separately, Trotter explained: “I would have expected Ryan to inform the executive of the club of any payments made or at least have any payments included in the contract of the player.” Euroa are part of the Goulburn league. Credit: Angela Wylie On one occasion, Pendlebury was handed a cash envelope to give to Yousif by Trotter’s son Nate, the senior team’s vice captain, at a pre-season training session at Melbourne’s Gosch’s Paddock in 2024. When first interviewed on May 7 this year, Yousif said he had been given about $2000 in cash by Pendlebury at Gosch’s Paddock. But he later changed his story.

When asked by Del Monte eight days later to clarify just how much money he was given – $2000 as he had initially claimed, $3500 as claimed by Pendlebury or between $4000 and $4500 as claimed by Trotter and Embling – Yousif admitted to the investigator “he could have been wrong and paid more”. “He couldn’t remember exactly how much it was or how it was made up, only that it was cash,” Del Monte wrote in his review. Yousif signed a player declaration form on April 6, 2024 to play with Euroa. But because Yousif did not mention the sign-on fee, he was deemed by AFL Goulburn Murray to have breached player payment rule 4 (b) (ii) – failure to lodge an accurate player declaration. Damage control Gleeson believes Pendlebury’s late resignation as coach and the ensuing tribunal case has damaged Euroa.

He said if Pendlebury had declared the money given to him by supporters for sign-on fees, “as he should have”, the club would never have had an issue. Gleeson disagreed that Euroa got off lightly for their breach. “Euroa is the one who brought this to everyone’s attention, and they were only minutely over the salary cap,” he said. Gleeson, who is in his third coaching stint at Euroa, said the coach was responsible for the player budget.

He said he was given a spreadsheet every Sunday that provided a running total of what he had spent. “As far as I know, that’s been ongoing for years,” Gleeson said. “He [the coach] is the one that gets the money at the start of the year, and they tell you what you have to work towards.” But Pendlebury denied that he controlled the player wages at Euroa. He agreed he was presented with a spreadsheet each week by the president, but said that was only to confirm which players had played each week, not how much they should be paid.

He said he was not responsible for the 2024 salary cap issues. Out of the blue It came as a shock to the Geelong-based St Mary’s when one of their star recruits was rubbed out for five matches, eight rounds into their season. They knew he had met with Del Monte about his time in the Goulburn Valley League but believed he was only providing background information on Euroa’s self-reported breach. “Pendlebury fully co-operated with the investigation and provided all relevant information voluntarily,” St Mary’s said.

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