Dear Members, Fans and Supporters,
As we close out the 2024 season and look forward to a new chapter in our Club’s rich history, I want to take this opportunity to mark some recent highlights and provide an update on Board changes for 2025.
Next month, the all-important NRL pre-season work begins when Jason Ryles and his new coaching team kick off training on November 1. This is such an exciting opportunity for us as Jason, ably supported by his new Assistant Coaches, works to build and shape a new era for our Club. You would have also seen that we have been building out our NRL and NRLW squads for 2025 and we will have some further announcements on this in the coming weeks.
As Jason said when he arrived, this work will be about redefining our culture, bringing our Club closer to our community, and giving our players the environment to enable them to be consistently at their best.
Whilst next year’s focus will be on improving our on-field performances, the Club is acutely aware of the need to deliver greater engagement opportunities for the Eels community and the plans for this are well underway.
In addition to the Members forum that I spoke about a few weeks ago, we now have confirmed our community training events at both Fairfield in November and Granville in December that will see our players and coaches coming together with our Members and fans.
Future stability
In recent days, I have received some questions from supporters seeking clarity on issues relating to our Club and the proposal for an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of our parent company, the Parramatta Leagues Club.
Most of you know our troubled history, but for those who don’t here is a brief snapshot: in 2016 an Administrator was appointed by the NSW Government to oversee the Club after six dark years of scandal and factionalism that almost brought the Eels to its knees.
That Administrator put in place a new structure, creating the two entities of Parramatta Leagues Club (PLC) and Parramatta National Rugby League Club Pty Limited (PNRL or the Eels), each with separate constitutions, Boards and management teams.
The PLC Board has no day-to-day involvement with the operations of PNRL including football matters and equally the PNRL Board is not involved with the financial or operational decisions of the PLC.
Since then, the management teams and boards of PLC and PNRL have worked incredibly hard to move the Clubs forward and ensure we don’t return to those damaging days.
Unfortunately, this EGM proposal, driven by many associated with the factionalism of the past, threatens to do just that.
In terms of the Eels, our Constitution was created to provide strong governance, protect Members and ensure ongoing Board renewal. (You can read more about the PNRL Constitution here.)
Board changes in 2025
Under the PNRL Constitution, the Board consists of 7 board members. PLC can nominate 2 directors which must be approved by the PNRL Nominations Committee.
The remaining 5 directors, known as External Directors, are identified and recommended by the PNRL Nominations Committee to the PNRL Board for approval. External Directors can serve a maximum term of nine years.
Since 2017, four External Directors have retired. One in 2018, two in January 2023 and one more in May 2024.
By the end of 2025 we will have two more retirements, including myself as chairman and fellow director Vicki Leaver, resulting in all the original External Directors having retired by year end 2025. That is, a full turnover of the PNRL Board as envisaged by those who drew up the constitution.
These retirements obviously create vacancies, and the PNRL Board recently decided to engage an external search firm to help us identify potential new External Directors.
This process will include public advertising for the positions (as has occurred previously), inviting any interested individuals, who meet the skills criteria (or ‘matrix’ as it’s called) to apply. (You can read more about the PNRL’s skills matrix here.)
To ensure that there is genuine board renewal, past PLC and PNRL Board directors are not eligible for appointment as External Directors onto the PNRL Board.
It is vital we have the right people, with the right experience and knowledge, to drive the future of the Eels and I can assure all Members that our search process is rigorous.
As always, thank you for your support. On behalf of the PNRL Board, we will continue to look for ways to improve and strengthen our connection with our Club’s most important assets – our Members, fans and supporters.
Yours sincerely,
Sean McElduff
Chairman, Parramatta Eels
Member #1478883
Replies
Fluff price really. Nothing here tells us any real change will occur. Sure they have planned a members forum and two pre season fan training sessions....better than nothing I guess but, whoopty doo.
Sure, McElduff is stepping down and shared the criteria for NRL board members...nothing in the criteria to guarantee football experience will be extended on the board. The committee may pick more bean counters or council yaks. What council is Kellyville in? They'll probably want a peice of the action.
The one thing he got right is we don't want the other mob to get a foot in the door.
I think this set of comms is just a way to address those pushing for the Leagues Club EGM. It's pretty clear from this that even if one of Roy's boys got on the PLC board, it's unlikely they'd be appoint to the PNRL board.
Experience in the NRL or NRLW is part of the skills matrix. Let's hope that skillset is prioritised by the committee for the next nomination period.
Agree, let's hope that skill is given extra credits. Maybe we can get Toovs, apparently he's an accountant.
Your point about the skills set, particularly the NRL component is telling. We're entitled to know a lot more about this.
What weighting does NRL experience carry? Why does our Board have zero NRL experience? Who is on this selection committee they mention? How often does it meet? Are there minutes available to understand how candidates were selected?
My concern is that functionally, our Chairman is the self-appointed entirety of the selection committee. That he decides who, how and when people will be appointed. The "committee" has continually shown complete disregard for ensuring we have some NRL skill set on the Eels Board. If I am wrong, then I'd like it to explained to me precisely how this works.
A Board's entire purpose is to offer independent oversight of operations. How can a Board offer oversight to an NRL Club when it doesn't have any experience or expertise in NRL?
To put it in terms our Chairman would understand, what good is the Board of a bank if it has no people with banking experience?
There are no weightings in the skills criteria attached to the constitution. You must demonstrate experience in one or more of the skills areas - one of those areas is NRL. That's as detailed as the constitution referenced matrix goes. Having said that, this is also a super common setup for company boards. What we have in place is standard.
A clarification - the Chairman of the board isn't the chairman of the Nominations Committee.
The Nominations Committee is made up of the committee chair, an external director and a Leagues Club director. The chairman cannot be an existing director and the role is cycled every 3 years with a maximum 6 year term.
More transparency around the nominations committee would be useful, because there's a lot of misinformation doing the rounds. And I agree Mutts that there's some scrutiny to be had, especially in regards to the missing NRL or even sports administration experience of the PNRL Board.
With the retirements coming up it would seem the prime opportunity to seek out the best and brightest to plug our most pressing gaps. A third party to do this headhunting sounds like a logical and smart idea - again, this is basically how all boards do it nowadays. As long as that third party has a good understanding of the areas our current board needs to focus on and therefore the skills we should be aiming for (including replacing skills of those leaving).
A clarification - the Chairman of the board isn't the chairman of the Nominations Committee. The Nominations Committee is made up of the committee chair, an external director and a Leagues Club director. The chairman cannot be an existing director and the role is cycled every 3 years with a maximum 6 year term.
Yep that sounds reasonable. Is that what is occuring in reality? Who are these mystery folk on this Nominations Committee? Or does the Chairman of the Board simply choose his own Directors?
Either way it is a shit system, members can only vote for the leagues club board who only have 1 person on the committee that decides who runs the football club .
The leagues club member who sits on the nominations committee is out numbered by 2- 1 and therefore can get out voted 2-1 by people who have absolutely SFA to do with the club .
As members we have SFA say in the football club because the league's club basically had SFA say in the football club .
The league's club owns the NRL licence and the leagues club funds the football club yet leagues club board have zero say , absolute joke .
The leagues club board are the ones who should be in control of who sits on the football club board and if they happen to get it wrong then members have the option of voting them out and this is how members have a say .
The football club's future is technically in the hands of two people who members never voted for and who have nothing to do with the club , members didn't go through 3 years of hell during the reforms to have two faceless people deciding that fate of the football club .
If every member knew 100% that 2 faceless people who members would have zero say over were the people with the most power how do you think they would of voted ?
Sounds like we're getting a few new signings in the next few weeks.
What are the rumoured signings? Has anyone heard anything?
Won't Somebody please think of the children?
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