As you are aware the Extraordinary General Meeting ("EGM") at the Club will be on 19 November 2024. Due to some "Red herrings", gas lighting and misleading information that has been propogated, I would like to clarify a few things.
Who is behind this EGM?
Roy Spagnolo is the driving force behind Make Parra Matta Again group which includes some former players and a few hundred members that got enough signatures to force the EGM.
The group have been hesitant to publicly attach Spagnolo's name to it for months. However, earlier today via the SMH, Spagnolo finally admitted to his involvement.
What will be voted for at the EGM?
Five resolutions will be voted on at the EGM which are the removal of four (4) Leagues' Club directors and the voting in of new Leagues' Club directors in the near future (at or prior to the next Annual General Meeting). They need over 50% of the votes for it to pass.
What it is not ?
Whatever the outcome of all this, it will not change the existing Constitution.
Whatever the outcome of all this, it will not change the existing Footy board.
Phil Sim (former 1EE owner) and Greg Monaghan are not in the group of four directors Spagnolo's group wish to oust.
What is it about then?
Essentially, it is a tool for the Spagnolo who believes he is doing the right thing and means well (while being banned from the footy board by the Constitution) to find a way back into the Club into the vacated director seats via his proxies - at any cost.
This continues his raft of nefarious interference, legal cases against the club's constitution, and his continued efforts to bog the club down in the mire of a mess he creates by consequence of his decisions.
What happened to the Club under the leadership of former chairmen Roy Spagnolo and Steve Sharp between 2010-2016?
No finals footy
Two-straight almost three-straight wooden spoons (under Roy 2011-13)
Almost losing the NRL license
$50m in losses
A revolving door of 25 directors
A revolving door of 5 CEOs
A revolving door of 4 head coaches
The cap scandal
Over $1m in fines due to poor governance & cap scandal
Constant dysfunctional administrations marked by constant warring factions, leaks, back-stabbing and sabotaging
Government appointed administrator Max Donnelly stepping in as the club was deemed incapable of self-governance
The 2009 grand final squad was not formed under his leadership that began mid-2009. It was formed under Fitzgerald's regime. Under Roy over the next three years, Daniel Anderson was sacked, Stephen Kearney was brought in and we won 2-almost-3 straight wooden spoons. Besides some of the worst on-and-off field performances seen in our history - warring factions, back-stabbing, leaks, sabotaging - throughout the 2010-16 Dark Ages.
Spagnolo: an Eels tragic, the wealthy businessman with a chequered past who will do "whatever it takes"
Why should we worry about Spagnolo?
Other than his record as Eels' chairman (refer above), Spagnolo has been deemed by the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority in 2015 not to be a fit and proper person to govern a registered club.
It took months before Spagnolo came clean on his involvement in this EGM, and there is also Spagnolo's history, alleged shady business activities and alleged ties to criminal entities. Refer to the following articles for more information.
Kate McClymont and Jacquelin Magnay (4 July 4 2009), Italian connection comes under scrutiny, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Link. Kate McClymont and Jacquelin Magnay trace a tangled web of failed property deals that all lead back to Eels chairman Roy Spagnolo, his dogdy property development failings, short changing of the ATO, colorful associates part of royal commission, Woodward royal commission as a money launderer for the Griffith Mafia.
Kate McClymont and Stuart Goodman, (24 July 2015), Who Is Roy Spagnolo?, Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Link.
Matthew Benns (27 December 2023), Look out Parramatta: Former Eels chairman Roy Spagnolo is standing for re-election to Parra Leagues Club board, Link.
Chris Barrett (15 September 2014), Eels scandal deepens with allegations of intimidation, The Leader, Link.
Chris Barrett (2 November 2013), Lies, deceit by Spagnolo at the Paramatta Eels, Stuff.
Why should Eels fans and members care?
Spagnolo and the Group likely mean well. But hell is paved on good intentions. Don't underestimate the consequences of all this.
We have seen the consequences of Spagnolo's governance and leadership.
Our club has issues and challenges, but Spagnolo, his cronies and puppets are not the solution.
If one or more of Spagnolo's minions make their way into the inner sanctum of the club, its Trojan Horse toxicity is dangerous.
Worst still, if the club is seen to be unable to self-govern itself once again, imploding from the inside, an administrator could step in again and we may not be so lucky with our NRL license the next time around.
And even if it fails, it's unlikely to be the last of Spagnolo's mischief.
Replies
Thanks for pulling this together HOE. I feel that our current Constitution prevents this sort of takeover, as it was designed to do, but of course these documents can be fairly easily changed by members votes. Luckily the electronic voting means that is quite unlikely, but still possible.
I also feel that the current board needs to define a strategy for the near future so that members and fans get buy in with the club, which also makes wholesale changes such as those proposed much less palatable for anyone.
Thanks Longfin. Spot on, on both points.
I was chatting briefly with a lawyer about this who understands corporate law to get a perspective of this and worst-case consequences. They expressed gut feel concern (not legal advice) that if some of Spagnolo's minions got it - let's say four for a majority at board level - we could be on a dangerous slippery slope. That is, if we don't demonstrate that we can self-govern ourselves properly for a large sporting body like ours, an administrator could step in again.
I doubt Spagnolo's Trojan horses are aiming to help the current administration - more to undermine it and replace it. And find a way into the footy board.
How do we expect the club to function as a united whole under those circumstances?
The Constitution can largely protect the footy board from a discontent beer-guzzling factions on $15-a-year memberships with $5 discounts on Chinese that have never run a $200m sporting organization let alone a $12m carpark. But it can't protect us completely. Members still vote in directors.
We've had a taste of some of these members. They can't even admit Roy is involved and hardly understand what they're voting for. Well, at least Roy has now finally come clean, maybe they can stop playing deceptive games.
It seems to me, Donnelly set up this external committee, because he didn't trust the wisdom of voting members. Was he right?
As you say we have a lot of work to do and can learn from the mistakes of recent years with the Arthur reign. We will also get a new Chairman, big dog in the footy board, soon. Will it be enough? There's pathways to fix and that won't happen overnight. It will take time.
It's a damn hard gig running our club that most members probably have not had to do in their lifetime. I'd love for a Nick Politis type Messiah to sweep us off our feet or even a friendly billionaire businessman like Druissi with integrity. But, they don't seem to grow on trees out west.
Ultimately, only winning at the shopfront level, NRL level, will keep members and fans happy, and shut up the detractors.
Great complication HOE.
Roy's mum must be running out of pages in the scrapbook with all those newspaper articles.
But seriously, the guy is a proven dud. He wouldn't even be able to sniff the boots of a Ponissi or a Politis. We need to be after actual talent, not someone who has shown us they don't have what it takes and will drag the club to the gutter.
I'm sure Roy is an Eels fan, and good for him for that. But just as being a fan doesn't qualify all 70kgs of me to play Prop for the Eels, being a fan doesn't qualify Roy to be a director.
In fact it's one of the things in life he's been independently assessed as very bad at. Spite is a hell of a drug, Roy needs to find a hobby...can someone volunteer to show him how to play Fortnite?
Thanks, Captain. I agree. No doubt Spagnolo means well. It's just the consequences of him or his minions being back in the inner sanctum are diabolical.
Great post HOE, a timely reminder of the past and the reason never to go back - unfortunately and unintentionally the front office has left the door open for some undesirables to enter the fray, I'm sure Roy's workers will disappear after NOV 19 for a period - hopefully we headhunt elite people that change our fortunes going forward.
I hope you're right Mick.
Imagine doing this thankless task - running a $200m plus sporting organization for hardly a huge renumeration - to just get stones and shitted on by some in the media and your own fans and members and a perennial trouble-emaker like Spagnolo.
Need balls of stone, and a head well screwed on and immune to it all.
Imagine what your wife would say? Honey, really? This ain't worth it. You can make more owning a McD franchise with less personal attacks on you and the stress on the family.
Great blog, HOE.
Thanks very much for this, its incredibly helpful for those of us unfamiliar with the process. You have simplified it really well.
As mentioned yesterday, I really can't understand the timing. Surely Roy would've been better served trying this a few months ago, or were / are there restrictions around when this type of EGM can be proposed?
Regardless, I find it hard to believe this will gain much traction, but, people can be currupted pretty easily when their team is starved of onfield success?
What I find strange is that there really isn't an alternative direction & strategy put forward, its just 'we will replace the board in a few months' - so essentially, you want people to vote out the cuurrent directors, and hope for the best with the next lot?
There doesn't seem to be any notice of motion to change the Consititution to allow for the removal of the directors. As I understand, the Consitition is clear about how directors are appointed and terminated. In that case the EGM is a complete waste of time as what they are proposing is unconstitutional.
The timing is a function of process.
All coups start with discontent and division so Roy amd Friends needed something negative to make this happen.
I'll bet no one was hoping for an Eels wooden spoon more than these guys. But they got close enough - a bad footy season.
Fans are disappointed, the coach is fired, we narrowly missed the spoon.
Step 1 complete - disappointment and disillusionment.
But people won't react well to Roy doing this, so he stayed in the shadows and rang around his friends, ex players, media, passionate fans who were easy to manipulate. And he now has Step 2 - a "voice of the people" to run his narrative.
Now there's the pesky administrative tasks of gathering signatures. If only all of those backdated memberships that were fraudulently added on Roy's watch were still active - it's so much easier to win when you stack the deck.
Oh well, they had to do that the hard way. Using their "voice of the people" to misinform members into thinking this was about improving our footy results. And of course the puppetmaster has stayed a long way away from making any of these misleading statements himself - he's just used easy to manipulate pizza men and ex players to do that for him, so he remains squeaky clean if someone has to take the fall for misleading the members.
They got the signatures - Step 3. It doesn't matter how, it's done. Did they intentionally mislead? Who knows...but if past behaviour predicts future behaviour...hmm...
All of the above takes time, and it brings us to where we are today. It all happened when they found the trigger for division - our bad football season. But I'm sure this plan has lingered for years, but the Eels being regular finals featured and the Leagues Club doing well stopped any moves being made.
There is nothing in me that believes anyone (including the puppetmasters) expects these resolutions to pass. I think they know they'll fail. They're just the next step in the plan to destabilise as much as possible...they don't want to be a Director in the current setup because it won't allow them the unfettered power they enjoyed before.
I suspect they actually want to blow the Eels up completely so they can remove all of these pesky governance measures that the appointed administrators helped put in place. They liked the bad old days, it suited them.
As Roy said, he doesn't think he did a bad job.
Are votes at EGM's in-person only, or is voting for these resolutions available online too?
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