The untold story of the sacking of the Parramatta Eels board
Standing up for myself and other former Parramatta board members might not be popular. My efforts so far have been met with appalling vilification on social media.
I've been called a whore mouth, brothel keeper and it has been suggested that condoms with my face on them be sold at Pirtek stadium on one website.
The NRL claims to want more female board directors, and I wish them luck.
I have been dragged into NRL and NSW government investigations and, to my knowledge, I have not been found guilty of anything. I was also asked to stand aside from an area health board I served for five years.
All of this happened despite there being no findings against me and no suggestion of any impropriety at all.
Indeed, I am yet to face an allegation of any kind.
Yet here we are – elected board members effectively sacked, though we have not breached rules or been subjected to any negative findings.
It seems mine is guilt by association with the so called "gang of five". Five men who were determined guilty and pilloried publicly before being able to answer the charges against them.
NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg occupies a powerful position: he is judge, jury, executioner, media commentator and now it seems a political lobbyist who can take out boards he is not happy with. He was also a personal referee for former Eels employee Scott Seward, whose as-yet untested statement was the prime evidence used against his former employers.
The untold story is that of a potentially unreliable witness, less than due process, a decision to ignore all of the governance reform work undertaken by the board and a public flogging.
There is a truckload of evidence to support this proposition.
Full evidence of the extent of the alleged fraud at the Eels was not revealed to the board until the NRL preliminary breach notice was issued and access granted to some of the incriminating statements and transcripts gathered by the NRL.
It was upon seeing this that the board itself duly referred the matter to the NSW Police.
There was a text message provided to the Eels in which a senior staff member of the NRL suggested the NRL integrity unit had breached confidentiality, resulting in a leak to the media while the investigation was under way.
This revelation wrecked the relationship between the club and the NRL.
The club continually asked for procedural fairness and was denied.
Worse still, directors who hadn't breached the rules were subject to a scathing public commentary from Greenberg.
So what, some may say. It's a tough game and that's the way the world works. I disagree. People's reputations and livelihoods are at stake. So is the great Parramatta brand. And who's to say who the NRL will next decide to take aim at?
The Eels board was also not given any credit for implementing more than 100 recommendations for improving governance from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Nor for the fact that the administrator has inherited a financially sound club with a blueprint for reform that's already under way.
The board also hired Australia's foremost salary cap expert Ian Schubert, who told the board that the breaches in the cap were nowhere near the scale suggested by the NRL.
Engaging independent auditors and experts and making referrals to police are hardly the acts of people not committed to good governance.
These efforts were ignored. Instead, people who were reforming the club were given the option of resigning or being sacked.
The board is still to see all of the evidence the NRL had gathered in its investigation into the club. There are several transcripts from former Eels employees which the NRL refused to provide. It is not known why that is.
The state government, in responding to the shrill cries of some media and the NRL, has taken the unprecedented step of appointing an administrator to a financially secure club.
In the final week of the board's existence numerous indirect approaches were made about dropping the appeal.
Surely now, the right thing to do is allow the NRL appeals committee chairman Ian Callinan to review the Greenberg decision.
Allow the former High Court justice to investigate the concerns about Greenberg's relationship with Seward and his choice not to recuse himself from the investigation.
Allow the NRL's own process to take its course.
There should also be a formal independent review of the NRL's decision
The administrator must support this to demonstrate that he has the club's best interests at heart.
Since the great game is built on fairness and respect, the administration of the game and the clubs within it must have the very same foundation.
My experience indicates the NRL has a very long way to go in achieving this.
Tanya Gadiel was a short-term Parramatta Eels board member and a former state MP and deputy speaker.
