Rivals clubs say Victory funnelled large payments through overseas clubs to secure the services of Socceroos players James Troisi and Tom Rogic, in order to avoid having their full cost counted towards the salary cap.

Victory signed Troisi in September 2013 on a one-year deal. He was paid $50,000 for the season, just above the league's minimum wage. Victory also made an up-front payment to the Italian clubs that co-owned Troisi, Juventus and Atalanta, who continued to pay his European salary while he played for Victory.

Victory only counted his annual A-League wage towards the salary cap.

In a similar deal, Victory signed Socceroos star Tom Rogic in January 2014, who was also paid the A-League minimum wage of $50,000. But Victory paid Rogic's parent club, Celtic FC, an up-front fee, believed to be $250,000.

Celtic then continued to pay Rogic while he played for Victory.

The FFA was keen for both players to return to the A-League to impress local coaches ahead of the World Cup and Asian Cup.

Victory's use of up-front payments was discussed at a heated meeting of A-League bosses on May 27 last year, at which several club CEOs argued that Victory must count the up-front payments. Those up-front payments would have put the club over the league salary cap.

Fairfax Media believes that the FFA's head of legal and business affairs Jo Setright argued at the meeting that up-front loan payments should be included towards Victory's salary cap under league rules.

"It was a very heated meeting and Jo Setright clearly stated the payments should be included towards the TPP (total player payments)," said the CEO of one leading A-League Club.

Two other club CEOs at that meeting said the loan deals were discussed at length with Setright.

On June 6 last year, 10 days after that May meeting, the FFA issued a memo titled "Players on loan – salary cap", which was sent to all A-League clubs. It sent to "clarify" rules and said payments for loan players must be counted towards the salary cap.

"Loan fees (and any other amounts) paid to the loaned player's parent club will be treated as indirect payments by the club to that player and included within the club's Total Player Payments," it stated.

But no retrospective punishments were handed out.

The memo also flagged that the FFA would "discuss the application of the above with the relevant clubs on a case-by-case basis to ensure a reasonable treatment of such arrangements" for existing deals.

Melbourne Victory boss Ian Robson told Fairfax Media he believed his club had complied with the letter of the law.

The FFA, which has been rocked by Perth Glory's salary cap breaches, says Victory broke no rules.

"FFA rejects any suggestion that clubs with loan players in the 2013/14 season were in breach of the A-League player payment guidelines," said the Head of Hyundai A-League, Damien de Bohun.

"FFA was fully aware of all such payments at the time. The guidelines for that season very clearly stated that loan fees paid to the parent club are not included in the club's salary cap. The normal post-season review identified that FFA needed to clarify the interpretation of a 'loan fee', and that was done and communicated to all the clubs."

The FFA also pointed to an old guideline that says "loan fees paid to the parent club are not included in the club's salary cap".

But angry rival clubs accused the FFA if cherry picking clauses from old guidelines to suit its case.

"The fact is, if this was allowed, we all would have done it for years," said one CEO. "The guidelines say that, but they also say part of a player's overseas salary then needs to be counted. It's a complicated formula. The fact is Clive Palmer threatened to do just this while at Gold Coast in 2009, and we all told such loan payments were not allowed. So this is where the FFA is at: the loan payments were not allowed before Victory did it, they are not allowed after Victory did it, but they were allowed when Victory did it. Explain that to the fans."

Another club CEO said Melbourne had been let off the hook.

"I think what Perth did was a breach of the cap and they deserve their whack. But I also think we should look at what Victory did."