Football Federation Australia ignored a senior manager's concerns that Sydney FC may have breached its salary cap during the 2009-10 season when they won the A-League grand final.

The senior operations manager Matt Phelan recommended sanctioning the club, but the federation told him to take a different approach to make sure Sydney FC were not brought into line.   

Phelan was unhappy with this alleged directive and refused to have any further involvement with the salary cap issue, and it was given to another staff member to handle.