‘It wouldn’t exist’: The tough calls that saw Jim Sarantinos save the Parramatta Eels from extinction
There’s a world where Parramatta CEO Jim Sarantinos isn’t sitting in a corner office of the club’s brand new $70 million centre of excellence.
A world where there is an NRL, but no Parramatta Eels.
“The club wouldn’t exist,” Sarantinos tells this masthead of the turmoil at the club in years gone by.
“It would not have survived, or the alternative would have been a club in complete ruin.”
It’s easy for Sarantinos not to dredge up Parramatta’s dance with death almost 10 years ago.
After all, he helped secure funding for Parramatta’s state of art training facilities, the club calls world class venue CommBank Stadium home and is finally in a healthy financial position.
Instead the Eels boss doesn’t pull any punches.
Before Sarantinos, the club had been through a seven-year period where there were five head coaches, five different CEOs, 25 different directors and numerous salary cap breaches.
In 2016, the Eels were fined a $1 million dollars and docked 12 competition points for salary cap breaches dating back to 2013.
The Liquor and Gaming Authority stepped in appointing Sarantinos and Max Donnelly as administrators to the Leagues club board - which in hindsight was a rescue mission.
“The football program was losing over $10 million a year, which was a function of the poor governance across the group,” Sarantinos said.
“When we got involved in the middle of 2016 the club was the poorest performing club commercially right across all 16 clubs at the time, by far.
“We had the worst facilities in the game by far.
“It means that you fall behind your competition in what you can invest in your footy program and your facilities and so on, and it makes it difficult to attract players.
“It makes it difficult to retain players, makes it difficult to retain good people working in the organisation.
“You lose the confidence and the trust from members and fans and sponsors.
“If it would have continued spiralling down that path like the club wouldn’t be here now.
“There’s no question about that.”
The club has steadied its foundations in the past decade.
After a governance review, which separated the Leagues and football club boards, Sarantinos stayed on as a director before joining the Eels as the club’s chief operating officer.
And then taking over as CEO in 2019.
“We’ve been on a stable financial footing for I’m going to say at least since 2020, the economy around the game has become much stronger,” Sarantinos said.
“CommBank Stadium plays a big part in that, but so does the credibility, the trust, the confidence that’s been able to be established with major sponsors.
“The nature of the relationship that we now have with our Leagues Club is that they’re there to support but we are not a burden on them.
“If we have a great year on the field in 2026, there’s no reason why we couldn’t be among the top two or three clubs commercially.”
DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES
With the club out of the red and flourishing financially, attention turned to matters on the field. Pertinently, the tenure of former coach Brad Arthur.
Despite taking Parramatta to a grand final in 2022, the question about whether Arthur was the man to break the club’s almost 40-year title drought refused to go away.
Finally, Sarantinos and the club felt there was no choice but to answer that question after the Eels’ heavy 48-18 loss to Melbourne in Magic Round last year.
“Absolutely, it was one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with. If anyone answers that differently, it tells you a little about the person they are,” Sarantinos said.
“Brad is the longest serving coach at this club, over almost 80 years of history.
“It’s not easy for anyone that’s in that situation, whether it be the person who’s on the receiving end, or whether it’s the person that’s delivering the news.
“We played in a grand final in 2022, we just missed finals in 2023, we had a difficult start to the season in 2024.
“We needed to go in a fresh direction, a fresh voice and I think that became obvious.
“It simply just becomes a decision that you have to make, and you just have to be able to deal with the consequences of it.
“That’s what leadership is about, right?”
Arthur suspected his 11 years at the helm had come to an end after receiving a phone call summoning him to a meeting with Sarantinos and former chairman Sean McElduff.
Arthur was on the money.
“I think Brad was pretty pragmatic about it,“ Sarantinos recalls.
“He took it as a matter of fact. He took it as I guess you would expect, Brad would.
“We met face-to-face with Brad. It’s the only respectful way to do it.
“It was only a brief conversation, and it was then time to move on.”
BLUE AND GOLD PRESENTATION
A month later the hunt was on for Parramatta’s new coach.
The club attempted to lure seven-time premiership winner Wayne Bennett to Sydney west, but those talks did not progress.
Brisbane coach Michael Maguire was said to be in the frame, while Craig Bellamy’s name was floated.
On the surface, the search appeared to have a particular criteria.
Seasoned coaches with premiership success - a feat that has eluded the Eels for decades.
But the search narrowed in a surprising direction.
“We needed to go through a lot of change, and we needed someone that was going to have the patience and the preparedness to make that change and accept and understand that results weren’t necessarily going to happen immediately,“ Sarantinos said.
“... a team that will grow with the coach as the coach grows.”
Enter rookie coach Jason Ryles, who Sarantinos invited to his home in the Sutherland Shire for an informal introduction.
“The first interview was at my house. It was a chat but it was obvious he had a clear vision for the principles he was going to drive as a head coach,“ Sarantinos said.
“It was obvious he sought out opportunities to broaden his coaching experience, working under Craig, Bellamy, Trent, Robinson, Eddie Jones.“
By the second interview, Parramatta’s hierarchy were sold.
“Everything that he presented was all coloured and styled up in blue and gold,” Sarantinos revealed.
“He had talked about the culture that he wanted to embed in the playing group, in the football program, in and around the concept of a Parramatta person.
“Parramatta was the first club he ever supported as a child. So he’s got a childhood connection and passion to the club as well.
“He reached deeply into those roots to design a coaching philosophy that he would apply here.
“So, we knew Jason was the right guy for us.”
BACKING YOUR JUDGEMENT
One of Ryles’ philosophies was an emphasis on youth.
Ryles had the fresh legs of Isaiah Iongi waiting in the wings at fullback and was ready to hand the No.1 jumper to the former Penrith rookie over skipper Clint Gutherson.
With his feet barely under the desk, Ryles then made the bold call to move on Gutherson from the final year of his deal in 2025, rather than re-sign him long-term.
“I think he showed the courage and conviction to make some difficult decisions last year, even though he took some heat in the short-term,” Sarantinos said.
“Jason wanted to see how the (2025) season played out before committing to Gutherson long-term.
“Gutho did the right thing to explore other options and there was a club (Dragons) that was prepared to give him a long-term opportunity in his preferred position.
“Jason, with the evolution of the team and being relatively new, it was too early for him to make a long-term decision on Gutho.”
The call was criticised and derided by some and praised by others.
Ryles stood firm.
“In that moment, you can either panic and you can respond or you can back your judgement that you just aren’t ready to be able to make that decision right now,“ Sarantinos said.
“So if the decision is that, to do nothing, you have to accept the consequences of that.
“Ultimately, we’ve brought in Jason as a head coach, but we’ve brought him in with every intention of backing his decision making and that’s exactly what happened in that situation.”
Ryles also moved the likes of Reagan Campbell-Gillard, Bryce Cartwright and Maika Sivo as part of his roster rebuild.
The club also refused to get into a bidding war with rivals over Dylan Brown, who defected to Newcastle on a 10-year deal worth over $13 million.
“Dylan had been at the club from the age of 15,” Sarantinos said.
“He had the opportunity to stay at the club for six years but another club put a life altering offer to him.
“You’re then confronted with a decision as to whether or not you compete for that player or you make a decision to not do anything and put it up to the player to make the call.”
Like Ryles stood firm on Gutherson, the club refused to be swayed by the external noise around about potentially losing Brown.
“I don’t begrudge him, and I don’t think anyone begrudges him taking the offer,” Sarantinos said.
“But you can either panic and react and make a decision that might not necessarily be in the best interests of the club.
“Frankly, if we would have responded (to the noise), that’s probably what we would have felt we were doing.”
NO DEBATE
Sarantinos is unapologetic about the club’s tough stance on the release of Zac Lomax, who signed a four-year deal from 2025 while Arthur was still coach.
Under the condition of his release, Lomax cannot return to the NRL before 2029 without the permission of the Eels after opting to explore other opportunities, namely R360, just one year into his long-term deal.
“I was surprised that one year into a four-year contract a player would be looking at other options,” Sarantinos said.
“But Zac was upfront with the key leaders at the club about being approached and other options would be something he would consider if that transpired.
“He approached us to consider an early release.
“We ultimately reached the view that that was what was in the best interest of the football team to not have a situation where a player on considerable money leaves part way through a season.
“That can leave you in a difficult position.
“We were prepared to grant the release on the basis of pursuing opportunities outside of the NRL, and on the basis that he would not play for another team during that contract term.
“There was no debate, there was no dispute, there was no challenge to it at all.
“He agreed.“
AREA OF NEED
Lomax’s departure leaves Ryles with a couple of roster spots to finalise before round one.
It opens the door for a youngster like Jordan Samrani to cement a spot in the starting side, or even rookie Richard Penisini to earn an NRL call-up.
The club also moved to sign Brian Kelly earlier this year.
But it also leaves the side without a State of Origin calibre outside back.
“It’s an area we need to strengthen,” Sarantinos conceded.
But the club won’t be rushing to make any market moves just yet, even if Lomax’s exit has helped boost its salary cap position - freeing up $700,000 per season.
“I feel really positive about the roster. It’s a largely young roster with a lot of growth left in it that played some exciting footy at the back end of last year,“ Sarantinos said.
“We always want to add quality to our roster, and we do have a few spots there, and we do have some money to spend, particularly with Zac having moved on.
“It comes down to the leaders in the football department as to how best we spend that money, whether or not that’s spreading that spend across three players, or looking to skew that spend more towards one or two of them.
“It’s a competitive market and there’s not a lot of available talent around for the 2026 seasons.
“But I’ve got no doubt that our club, the way that we’ve changed over things have changed over the last 12 months, we are going to be an attractive club for players to come to.”
