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NRL match fixing: $400,000 legal bill for Parramatta Eels’ ‘gang of five’
June 8, 2016 12:00am
Nick TabakoffEditor-at-LargeThe Daily Telegraph
THE Parramatta Eels face a legal bill over $400,000 after the club’s “gang of five” directors yesterday lost a Supreme Court bid to overturn their suspensions by the NRL.
Legal sources said the club’s own costs may be as much as $300,000 for the month-long legal action by Eels officials chairman Steve Sharp, CEO John Boulous, directors Tom Issa and Peter Serrao and football boss Daniel Anderson.
However, now they have lost the case, the club could have to foot the bill for the NRL’s legal fees as well. Lawyers for the NRL said *immediately following the judgment that they would be seeking coverage of their own costs, which The Telegraph understands to be between $150,000 and $200,000 for the case.
The $80 million a year 40,000-member Parramatta Leagues Club, the parent club of the Eels NRL club, is believed to have footed the bill for the directors’ failed Supreme Court action. The Leagues Club last year subsidised the Eels by $8 million.
The club’s costs included an estimated $10,000-a-day fee for barrister Arthur Moses and the fees for five separate solicitors’ firms engaged, including four for individual directors.
In the proceedings brought following the NRL’s issue of “breach” notices against the club and the five directors, Mr Moses had argued that the NRL had denied them procedural fairness.
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He claimed the immediate suspension of their registration had seen them subjected to a “public flogging”. But Justice James Stevenson said the NRL had the right to *enforce its own rules.
“On the proper construction of the rules, the plaintiffs did not have any right to be heard before the NRL made the suspension statement or issued the notices,” he said. “The notices are valid.”
The directors’ responses to their individual formal breach notices from the NRL are due today, while the club’s response to its penalties, including the loss of 12 points and a $1 million fine, are due on Friday.
The NRL has *issued beefed-up requirements for every club officer across the code to sign off that they “understand” NRL rules on all matters, including salary cap regulations, following the Eels affair.
Under online system NRL Gateway, all club officers, *including directors, now have to formally declare they “understand and accept the NRL Rules and Policies”.
Officers are required to make “declarations in relation to all integrity areas”. “This ensures those participating in the game have the ability to *uphold the *integrity of the game,” the document says.
