If Parramatta are allowed to make the eight, the four, the grand final or even win the premiership, it will forever be a stain on the premiership.
It's not a question of if the Eels will lose competition points but how many. The gavel is expected to fall next week.
There's certainly a feeling, as well as much speculation, that the club can limit the damage if the board – especially chairman Steve Sharp and his deputy, Tom Issa – falls on its sword.
Some tell you it will be a four-point deduction. Others say two. If they stand firm, it's been speculated, the Eels can expect a 10-point impost for this season.
The NRL says none of this has been decided and figures are being pulled out of various backsides. Former Eels chief executive Scott Seward has been interviewed but the board has not.
Weeks is very un-rugby league: he's thorough and methodical and won't listen to those wanting a resolution to suit their timetable. He's been investigating the club for four months. He won't be pulling the trigger until the time is right. So complicated is the Eels' salary cap mess, it resembles a game of KerPlunk.
If anything, though, there's a definite feeling within League Central that a change in governance at the Eels should only slightly help the embattled club's cause. Sins of the past are sins of the past.
Can you imagine the embarrassment to the NRL if a side that's been found guilty of clandestinely dodging the cap reaches the finals or even wins the premiership?
What confuses the matter at Parramatta are the hidden agendas that are bringing the issue to the fore. Factions upon factions are leaking to the media, with some former powerbrokers adopting a selfish, "If I can't have it, nobody can" approach.
They are not rugby league fans. They aren't even Eels fans. They're fans of themselves.
Reporters are chasing down the story like it's Watergate. While the reporting is enlightening, one is telling others that he's bound to win a Walkley award because of his labours.
For mine, the most damning story came last month when Fairfax Media revealed former Parramatta chief financial officer Ed Farish – who was once the director of finance at the NRL – had warned the club about the illegality of third-party payments to Anthony Watmough but they were ignored and the payment was made anyway.
That alone suggests arrogance of the highest order. It highlights a desperate culture of doing whatever they want, at whatever cost.
Unlike the Bulldogs, Storm and Warriors salary cap breaches of the past, when millions of undisclosed payments were made, Parramatta's issue isn't about money but how they did business.
It's the alleged deceit that's at play here. Alleged deceit that helped them secure unfashionable players, some well past their prime, with third-party payments.
What did they win? A couple of wooden spoons.
Head office has had just about enough as long-suffering Eels fans.
There appears little chance of the Parramatta board resigning, but the best result would be if they all stood aside and let NRL administrators take control, just as it did with the Titans following their salary cap issues.
We're also told there's a cluster of Eels people, with strong business acumen and no link to any faction, ready to help out when they can.
The pain of what's about to come down looms as the watershed moment the club needs.
This is Parramatta. Parra. The Eels. The club that produced a Scanlen's deck of superstars, from the Crow to Sterlo to Bert to Guru to the Bear to the Zip-Zip Man to …
Their demise doesn't just hurt Parramatta. It hurts the game. If those in power are true Parra people, they will sack themselves.
