PARRAMATTA coach Brad Arthur has lifted the lid on poisonous infighting, mistrust and backstabbing behind the scenes at the Eels, declaring: “It’s been a shambles from the time I got there till now.”
Extraordinary transcripts of Arthur’s interview with the NRL’s Integrity Unit as part of the Parramatta salary cap investigation in April show Arthur’s frustration at the leaking of information and interference from senior officials and board members.
Arthur, who joined the club in 2014 after the Eels had slumped to back-to-back wooden spoons, even made the sensational claim that some senior figures “don’t want me to succeed”.
In an exhaustive interview, Arthur told the NRL’s head of the integrity unit Nick Weeks and senior investigator Karyn Murphy on April 12 this year:
* THE NRL urgently needed “to make changes at our club ... we’re leaderless”;
* HE hid team information from the board for fear of it being leaked;
* PLAYERS and their managers would confront him demanding money owed from their contracts;
* HE encouraged the club to source third-party agreements but didn’t suggest “that we go and cheat or do anything illegal”; and
* NOT to punish the players by docking the team competition points.
INFIGHTING
Arthur led the Eels to 10th and 12th placed finishes in his first two years at the club, but felt he was being undermined.
“I feel like not everyone’s working with me, that people are working against me, they don’t want me to succeed,” Arthur said.
“I feel like they hide some (things). They tell me what they think I should know or what they want me to know. They don’t tell me everything and it’s always been like that.” At another point, he said: “I feel like they’re all working against each other.”
Pressed by Weeks on who “they” were, Arthur replied “the board, (and) Daniel (Anderson, head of football).
“They think that I’m prickly and I’m hard to get along with. They’re saying it because I want what’s best for the club.”
Asked about his relationship with the board, Arthur said: “It’s just like I said, it’s been a shambles from the time I got there till now.”
BOARD AND MANAGEMENT
Arthur presents the Eels board as interventionist — in a statement that appears to entirely contradict
the board’s claims they knew nothing about what was happening at the club during the salary cap breach period.
“They say they’re not operational but they stick their nose in everywhere,” he said. “They stay away from me now, but, you know, they go to other people.”
Asked which board members were most interested, he singles out chairman Steve Sharp, deputy chairman Tom Issa and director Peter Serrao: all now deregistered by the NRL.
Despite banding the players together in tough times since his arrival in 2014, Eels management have reneged on contract extensions with Arthur three times in the past two years.
But, according to Arthur, he’s faced no end of internal obstacles in trying to restore the Eels to a premiership force.
“I haven’t got along with everyone at the club because I feel, like, not everyone has the same passion and interest or care,” Arthur said.
“I’d need to get everyone in the room because there were so many different stories or lies told and I don’t know who to believe and that could be about my staff, could be about whether I want to get a bus to a game or anything.”
“Everyone does a bit of this, bit of that and no one wants accountability/responsibility for anything.”
One of Arthur’s lone allies is Geoff Gerard.
“I come into a board meeting, he says, ‘Let the coach coach, leave him alone’,” Arthur said.
Arthur also refers to the management style of former CEO Scott Seward: “The office nicknamed him “TC” and it was “tough c …” because he’d be tough and bravado, and nothing would get done. He’s a nice bloke but he was put in the role that he wasn’t good enough to do.”
SALARY CAP
“It changes from week to week at our club ... One week we’ve got $300,000 left in salary cap, the next week we might have 500, then we’re back to 200,” Arthur said. “There’s nothing concrete ever at our club”.
RECRUITMENT
An email from Arthur to Daniel Anderson, with CEO John Boulous cc’d, talks of the need for “third parties” to attract
star player Kieran Foran to the club from Manly. Foran ultimately joined on a $1.2m a year deal. Quizzed on the email, Arthur explains that he is “not suggesting we go and cheat or do anything illegal”.
After Mr Weeks suggests the club appears “more closely involved in securing third parties for Kieran than it ought to be”, Arthur replies: “This might sound naive … but I’ve tried to say out of that and all I’m suggesting there is that ‘we can’t afford to lose him’.”
THIRD-PARTY AGREEMENTS
Arthur talks of pressure during his time with the club about third parties that the Eels had not paid to players: Chris Sandow, Lee Mossop and Nathan Peats.
On Sandow, he said: “I was told through Chris’s manager, Isaac Moses, that Chris was owed money and wasn’t happy, but in terms of how much, what, who owed it, (I) had no idea.”
On Mossop, Arthur commented: “I wasn’t happy with him as a player. That’s about it, and, you know, he wasn’t needed at our club ... (Mossop’s agent) Wayne Beavis said to me at some stage that the club owed him money.”
The Telegraph revealed this week
that a TPA for Peats was allegedly promised on a coffee shop napkin to his agent Sam Ayoub. Arthur confirms that: “I think Sam said that he was owed money. I don’t know how much or what he was owed.”
There were also question marks raised over a Mercedes provided to club captain Tim Mannah. Mr Weeks was concerned Mannah had been promised a car, which didn’t go into his contract, but was “looked after a bit later on”. Arthur said he did not “understand” Mr Weeks’ point.
There is no suggestion any of the players or agents mentioned in this article have done anything wrong.
OTHER PLAYER DEMANDS
Arthur laments how players want “more money all the time”.
He refers to star winger Semi Radradra: “He was overseas and he missed a couple of weeks worth of training, and I’d give him an extra week off, and Daniel said: ‘and he’s whingeing about money’.
“They just want more money. They hear what other people are getting paid, and everyone just wants more money.”
THE TEAM
DESPITE the player demands, Arthur was full of praise for the group, unsuccessfully pleading with the NRL not to punish the players.
“They put their bodies on the line every week, they bust their arses,” Arthur said.
“We’ve had some tough times at that club over the last couple of years and they haven’t shirked it.
“You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do but punishing the playing group for ‘16 with points would be more detrimental to being good.”
