When the CFL came down on the Saskatchewan Roughriders on Thursday night, fining the team $60,000 and deducting $26,000 from the their salary cap for deep-running roster violations, Belton Johnson had a flashback.

“When it happened, the first thing I thought of was Edmonton,” Johnson said from his home in Regina on Friday morning.

Johnson, now 36, is a Riders radio analyst for CJME and works for Saskatchewan Government Insurance as an adjuster. He won a Grey Cup on the Riders’ offensive line in 2007 and the Eskimos were the final stop in an almost 10-year pro career. When he took to the field for his first day with the Eskimos in July 2012, reporters noticed the new body at practice. A name was hard to come by, though.

“I came in, nobody knew I was even signing there. To me, that’s hiding players, trying to fit guys in just under the roster. (Eric) Tillman (the Eskimos GM at the time and currently the Hamilton Tiger-Cats GM) does it; they’re doing it now,” Johnson said, laughing. “I’m sure Huf (John Hufnagel, Calgary’s GM and president) does. I’m telling you, every team does it.

“The Riders got caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”

The difference is the Riders’ cookie jar was overflowing with players. Calgary quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell has suggested on Twitter since June that recent Riders signees didn’t need to be flown into Regina because they’d already been in the city. Reports surfaced this past week the Riders had almost a second roster of players in Regina that were being housed, paid and involved in meetings and practices that took place after Riders’ practices concluded.

Johnson started to laugh as he explained what he’s seen from the team this season with Chris Jones coming in as vice-president of football operations, GM and head coach, and John Murphy coming in from Calgary as the assistant vice-president of football operations and player personnel.

“I live here in Regina and I knew there were 95 players over there,” he said. “It’s like ‘Holy cow, what is he doing? Again, it’s Regina. You’ve got fans that are sitting in the stands, all the reporters. I don’t think it was a big secret.”

Johnson said he sees both sides of what’s happened, but “backs Jones 100 per cent” on the roster moves.

“If they’re not doing their jobs we’ve got to find somebody that can get the job done. At the same time, as a player I get that too because you’ve got 20 or 30 guys in here and you might be benched or cut at some point, you don’t know,” he said.

“I get both sides of it.”

An Argonauts player told the Star on Thursday the Riders had two houses in Regina with 12 to 15 players in them that were being fed and paid while not under contract. The Riders are the wealthiest team in the CFL and the player said it’s known across the league the organization wants to win at any cost.

Johnson looked at the penalty from the league and laughed again.

“$60,000 for the Riders, that’s like me giving my son a quarter. That didn’t hurt them at all,” he said.

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It’s long been known teams across the CFL stash a varied amount of players on their six-game injured lists, so they can be paid while not affecting the salary cap and are available in case of injuries or cuts. Johnson insisted it’s only the scope of the Riders’ roster manipulation that caught the league’s eye. He doesn’t expect teams to stop stashing players.

“I think instead of bringing 20 maybe they do five or six,” he said. “Honestly I don’t think it’ll change a thing at all. The Riders, that $60,000 to me was a joke. If the CFL had come down very hard with . . . six figures, then maybe it’d be like, ‘We better back off.’ I think for any CFL team, $60,000 is nothing.”

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