Cronulla coach Shane Flanagan insists he had no knowledge of third party salary cap discrepancies at the NRL club until he was alerted by new chief executive Barry Russell this year.

The Sharks are under investigation by the NRL after they self reported a possible issue with a third-party deal for former player Chris Heighington in 2015, which Flanagan said he didn’t know the intimate details of at the time.

“As a third-party agreement, it doesn’t come across my desk … I didn’t know anything about it until three months ago that there was an issue,” he said.