Parramatta Eels’ season all but over with penalty set to end finals hopes
Date
May 2, 2016 - 8:34PM
Chris Barrett
Sports Writer
Parramatta's promising start to the season will be obliterated on Tuesday when the NRL finally hands down its judgment and sentence for the Eels' salary cap breaches, with the finals prospects of Brad Arthur's team to be all but abolished.
The details of Parramatta's penalty, determined by NRL chief Todd Greenberg, were being heavily guarded on Monday night but they will not be hit with a feather, facing the likelihood of losing even more than the eight competition points that has been speculated. Sitting fourth on 14 points, a double-digit deduction would mean Brad Arthur's side plummets to the foot of the table and would face a monumental task to reach the top eight, an assignment made even tougher by the indefinite absence of captain Kieran Foran.
Further sanctions, including action against board members and club officials over alleged breaches of the NRL code of conduct, were also anticipated in the preliminary breach notice. Eels chairman Steve Sharp and his board, who appeared at a robust annual general meeting of the Leagues Club on Monday night, won't be told of the club's punishment until Tuesday morning shortly before the announcement.
The NRL faces difficulty without jurisdiction over the Parramatta Leagues Club board, which runs the Eels, but there has been further speculation about League Central suspending a portion of the penalty as an incentive for directors to depart. The Parramatta hierarchy are already preparing to push back, however, after foreshadowing fighting the NRL in the courts claiming they have not been afforded procedural fairness.
The board has instructed club lawyer John De Mestre to brief the firm Carroll & O'Dea Lawyers on their behalf. Prominent Sydney barrister Peter Skinner has, in turn, been engaged to act for the club. Skinner was the crown prosecutor in the sexual assault trial of Brett Stewart in 2010 when the Manly fullback was found not guilty and later appeared for former Labor premier Nathan Rees when he gave evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry into a corrupt government mining tender. The Eels will be given five business days to respond to the breach notice and are likely to be granted more time if they request an extension.
Leading sports academic David Thorpe indicated on Monday that if they were provided more than five days to answer the charges against the club, the board's claim that they had not been afforded procedural fairness would be difficult to demonstrate in a courtroom. "Mr Sharp is perfectly correct to insist that Parramatta be afforded sufficient time to consider the case against the club and respond," said Thorpe, Lecturer in Sports Law at the University of Technology Sydney.
"The (NRL) rules stipulate five days but where the charge is complex or where there are people, players or perhaps third parties to interview, five days may not be enough. It seems that to avoid breaching the rules of procedural fairness – or natural justice as it is also known – the NRL will offer a longer time period to Parramatta if required. Although Mr Sharp wishes to face the club's accusers there is no necessary requirement of natural justice that opposing parties meet face to face – more likely to be confrontation through letter and email."
The cap saga is finally reaching its conclusion nearly three months after Fairfax Media revealed the club was under investigation for a third-party agreement between forward Anthony Watmough and the IT firm Black Citrus that is at the centre of the allegations against the Eels. If the rhetoric of Sharp and the Parramatta board is matched by action, however, it may not be the end of the affair just yet.
