MANLY captain Daly Cherry-Evans says he’s not worried his reputation will be damaged after he was named as one of the 13 Sea Eagles players whose deals breached the salary cap.

On Monday, the NRL handed down a $750,000 fine to Manly, banned two past and present officials and imposed a $330,000 penalty to their 2018 and 2019 salary cap, after the club were found to have promised players a total of $1.5 million in additional undisclosed payments over the past five years.

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Cherry-Evans’ comments came moments after The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield revealed on NRL 360 that the star playmaker’s contract, along with centre Dylan Walker’s, were two contracts that had come under heavy scrutiny by the NRL integrity unit.

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“In 2015, Daly Cherry-Evans signed with the Gold Coast Titans and did the most well-publicised backflip in the history of the game,” Rothfield said.

“To keep him at Brookvale, Manly signed him to an eight-year contract.

“The contract they registered with the NRL was fine, but in this audit the integrity unit have done, they found another $400,000 in his contract that wasn’t part of the salary cap.

“Number two, a very similar scenario a year later with Dylan Walker.

“He was playing at South Sydney, Manly were desperate to sign him.

“I don’t have the exact figures, but say he was offered $700,000, $600,000 was put into the salary cap and he got payments outside this.”

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Cherry-Evans said he had no knowledge of the salary cap rorting.

“Throughout the whole situation I certainly pleaded my innocence,” Cherry-Evans told Big League Wrap.

“I played a role in the investigation side of things, I did put my hand up in regards to them calling me, I was quick to put my hand up to go and take the interview up to plead my innocence.

“I certainly have nothing to hide in regards to my contract.

“I can certainly see why people were so intrigued about it during this situation, because of the length of it.

“I can see the alarm bells externally, but certainly no worries on my behalf and I was more than happy to play my part in the investigation.”

Rothfield also told NRL 360 that Cherry-Evans’ contract was so serious that then-chief executive Joe Kelly — who has been suspended for 12 months — refused to sign off on it.

“It was then given to Scott Penn their chairman to sign the contract and then submit it with the NRL,” Rothfield said.

“I can’t say that it was within Scott’s knowledge.

“I do know the management at Manly, their senior accounting staff went to Scott.

“Joe Kelly actually resigned over it. He said ‘I’m not touching this’.

“They said we’ve got a problem with Daly’s contract. They took it to Scott Penn and he signed it.”

Cherry-Evans said the Sea Eagles playing group as whole would be discussing the news on Tuesday.

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“It’s the elephant in the room, there’s no point just putting it in a corner and leaving it there for months to stew,” he said.

“We’ll certainly talk about it.

“I’m sure Trent and the front office will talk about the repercussions that will come from this if there are any directly to the playing group.

“We’ll make sure this galvanises us as a club and certainly as a playing group.

“You only have to look at Manly of past ... this thing doesn’t tear the club apart, it gets your back to the wall and it gets the best footy out of you.

“Obviously the situation isn’t ideal, but what it can potentially do to our playing group we’ll use it as a positive.”