Like so many good ideas intended for public benefit, including cane toads and Patterson's curse, the rise in importance of players' managers in sport has perverted into a grotesque situation.
Players' managers evolved from justified player concerns that they were being exploited by experienced club administrators into signing contracts for less than they were worth. From that simplicity, player's managers have risen to become powerbrokers, intruding into all aspects of their clients' lives often with headline-making drama.
The latest bizarre example is Cronulla rugby league star Greg Bird, who has been charged with grievous bodily harm against his American girlfriend Katie Milligan.
Bird allegedly blamed his temporary flatmate Bret Watson, who has since been cleared by police, for the attack and texted him the lines: "My manager is helping us sort this s..t out", and "Don't answer your phone - life or death."
On Tuesday, Bird's manager Gavin Orr was photographed leaving leaving hospital after visiting Ms Milligan. Orr's action may breach a court order.
The Bird case again raises the public profile of sporting managers in not just rugby league, but also AFL and cricket and the entertainment world.
Managers offer varying interpretations of circumstances affecting their clients. Some shield them from reality. Others are just after the money. Neither is admirable.
It was manager Jason Warne who provided the remarkable explanation that his brother and cricket star Shane failed a drug test because their mother had given him a diuretic to lose weight.
Some are opportunistic. When triathlete Candice Falzon was caught in a flagrant situation in a hotel toilet cubicle with rugby league star Sonny Bill Williams, her manager Max Markson sought a deal for her to flog hangover cures.
The worst managers have records portraying them as avaricious, unethical, unscrupulous and dishonest.
Orr also managed Parramatta rugby league forward Fui Fui Moi Moi and admitted forging the player's signature on a contract to join Melbourne. Parramatta protested and Orr admitted his guilt.
Managers don't even trust each other. "They're always trying to steal each other's players," one said.
It happened this year when Sonny Bill Williams walked out on the deal Orr had negotiated with the Bulldogs and signed with new manager Khoder Nasser, before joining a French rugby union club.
Managers take up to 8 per cent of a client's sign-on fee and as much as 30 per cent of endorsement deals.
Some are indifferent. One manager did not even turn up to see his client sign a $450,000-a-year contract with a club.
Leading sports manager Steve Gillis admits some of his colleagues could use a refresher course in behavioral standards, but insists things are improving.
"There are around 90 accredited player managers. Clubs learn who they can trust," he said.
Players' managers came into sport when naive young men struggled for traction in tricky negotiations with older and intimidating club officials.
Young men fresh from reaping wheat in some small country town had no idea of their financial worth as players.
Grand final forward Peter Peters remembers a trick Parramatta CEO Jack Argent used to sway newcomers.
Argent would produce what he'd claim was the contract Test players in the team like Ron Lynch had signed.
The false contract would say Lynch signed for $2000 - well below their real value of say $10,000 and that the deal offered to the newcomer was appropriate.
He used that leverage on Peters, who signed for a year before going to Manly.
"It was a bit much for a country boy from Goulburn and Wollongong at a Sydney club for the first time," says Peters, now a respected administrator.
One St George Test star recognised his need for advice. He took his employer's accountant to talks about a new contract. When Saints offered their star more for playing football than the accountant received for full-time employment, his negotiating inexperience rang loudly.
He told his client to take the deal, not realising it was simply an opening gambit and only a third of the final offer the club intended to make. Club officials laughed about it for years.
Another star player from another club was involved in tense talks over a new contract when the club CEO was unexpectedly called away from his office.
The player grabbed the chance to rifle player contracts in a filing cabinet and was much better equipped to negotiate when the CEO returned.
Canberra's grand final hero Paul Osborne, now in charge of the Accredited Player Agents scheme says players are not above criticism either.
"I wish they would read their contracts more carefully and know exactly what they include and when they end," he said.
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