This October, Steve Sharp wrote in his Chairman's message about the winding up of the Parramatta District Rugby League club. There weren't many details in it, except for the fact that Life Memberships were going to be protected and re-constituted within the PNRL entity. We were promised that the PDRL re-structuring would be completed by early November and then we'd get more information about it. To my knowledge there has been no further information.
As you all know, constitutional reform has been my personal hobby horse (and I know some of you are already saying 'not this again' and if that's you, probably best not to read on, because this is going to be a long-winded political rant), so I have made attempts to find out where this is going, and from the limited information I've being able to ascertain, all PDRL memberships are now dusted. And consequently if you're not a Leagues Club member, so is your ability to have a say in your club. In fact, I'll go even further to say that it appears all constitutional reform at the club is pretty much toast.
I say that because if you wanted to institute constitutional reform, you would do it at the next AGM. However given the constitutional reform committee was quietly disbanded and there hasn't been a peep on the issue since, other than the afore-mentioned Chairman's message; plus you take into account everything else that is happening with the governance review, and it seems safe to assume that we're going to go the next couple of years with what stands in place today. So this blog is about explaining why I think that's a bad thing and worthy of Eels fans at least being aware of.
Now, first a disclosure. Having lobbied on this issue for years - indeed having campaigned with members of the current board on this issue, both directly and on their behalf - that's a tremendous disappointment to me. So if you want to read into this, some level of bitterness then you're not being unreasonable. Because, quite frankly, it's become a sickening realisation for me that the constitution that I fought really hard to up-end, is actually much better than the current state of affairs.
Consider this:
- Previously PDRL/PNRL members had significant influence on who ran the club. If you were a season ticket holder for three years you got to vote for a board - which didn't do a lot - but at least that board has some power via the cross-director laws that ensured three of its members represented the football members at Leagues Club level. Football club members now have zero influence.
- Previously, the Leagues Club was protected in some ways from losing its connection to Rugby League via those cross-director laws. It was still possible to take over the Leagues club without any football directors but you'd need a clean sweep of all the other spots which made it a relatively remote possibility (note that Canterbury remove this possibility completely by ensuring a majority of football directors sit on the Leagues Club board). Right now there is ZERO protection for the footballing business/membership which should be considered a major business risk to the future funding of the Eels.
- Seven directors now have to be across our expanding Leagues Club business, district and junior football and our NRL and elite footballing operations. If you could hand-pick directors you just might be able to put together a board with the necessary skillsets to handle this, but the chances of getting the right mix of people via popular vote, particularly when voting always favours ex-footballers is pretty limited.
- There is no longer any hope of out-of-town members having any say in board matters. Given the Clubs Act disallows proxy or online voting, unless you're a Leagues Club member and can get to Parramatta on the days of the election, there's not even a future course of action to remedying this problem.
- Be prepared for the Leagues Club election to become an even bigger circus. At stake now, is not only control of what in the not-too-distant future will likely be a hundred million dollar business, but also total control over the Eels and Parramatta football. And given the lack of cross-director rules as described above, every election is now an absolute crap-shoot. We've already seen what lengths some have been willing to go to, to get control of the club - now the chances of an overthrow are better and the rewards are higher. Fun times ahead!
So many people are complicit in us getting to this point, the former football board who were happy to see the PDRL blown up rather than step aside, those factions who voted against the motions presented two years ago that at least would have moved us forward in terms of reforms like the ability to employ independent directors, and now the current board for being content to settle for a structure which centralises their powerbase.
The problem is, from a business perspective, it's dumb. Ignoring all of the membership issues, the lack of protection and the increased bi-annual instability are risk management issues that no competent board would not be moving to shore-up. It's worth nothing that the next-election will be the first influenced by members connected to the Leagues club via the Western Sydney Wanderers. It's not too much of a stretch to say that a ticket comprising of non-League aligned interest groups could stand at the next election and that Eels funding would be at risk of being slashed or even axed.
It will be very interesting to see what the NRL governance review makes of all this. It's another matter we've had radio silence on, and I'm presuming the lack of media or noise related to it, means that the review is still in progress. Given that in the last Chairmans Message we were told the entire process would be wrapped up prior to January 30, with a cast-iron guarantee that the club would not start the year with negative points, that in itself seems an uncomfortable situation. Personally, I'm not sure how a PWC governance review could overlook such obvious risk management issues. And if that happens, what then? Do we get constitutional reform foisted upon us by the NRL on their terms, with a Sword of Damocles swinging above our head in the shape of four competition points. (At pretty much any point in time, I would have railed vehemently against this outcome, but now even that may be more appealing than the current situation).
Amidst all these uncertainties only one thing rings true. The current administration has passed up the opportunity to push ahead with constitutional reform on our terms. It has passed up the chance to leave behind a genuine legacy - to have worked in consultation with both of its membership bases to hand-craft an inclusive, smart, stable constitution and structure that would have set-up the club for the future, and left behind the chaos and politically-poisonous days of the past.
PS: I realise this post is in some ways alarmist. Just maybe, everything works out. Maybe, the club gets through the governance review unscathed. Maybe, we have a super, successful year on the field and that takes all of the heat out of the politics and we get a nice, quiet election with only super-qualified people putting their hands up to run, and lots and lots of people with genuine voting intentions turn out and select an amazing board. However, I've had enough to do with Parramatta for a long enough period of time to believe that it's far more prudent to be covering your rear, than to stick with crossing your fingers or sticking your head in the sand.
PPS: If you were previously a PDRL member because you wanted to vote and you haven't taken a Leagues Club membership yet, it's a great idea to do so before the end-of-the-year so your membership starts in the 2015 calendar year. Gift yourself a Christmas present :-)
Replies
Ps, I took a break from reading to post this. Now back to war and peace.
I just checked Kurupt and my email had gone to junk for some reason.
Will members get the final governance report ? Will members get to see the recommendations of that report? The administration said that there was no need for a governance review!!! They have caved in from that position. Who selected PWC?-- the administration or the NRL?
The big danger, which you have touched on, is that with the extra funding granted to clubs, just last week,those "only super qualified people" will not only be putting their hands up but will be beating at the front door attempting to get their hands on that extra funding.! It is as certain as the sun rising every day. Imagine our club, and every club ,run by those types of this world?
Last time I checked the trouble with taking out leagues club membership is that you have to apply in person at the club. Being a regional member and getting voting rights via the PDRL was my attempt to assist address some of the issues mentioned. I could at least manage to drag my arse up to Sydney to vote if I wasn't doing anything else important.
Oh well, back to being an a fan with an expensive cap.
And this is EXACTLY what I'm dissapointed about. You have a member like Badger who went out of their way/and were prepared to go to considerable expense to have a say and be able to have a vote, and those rights just get stripped away without any acknowledgement.
It is easy to implement changes where you have a voice and a vote. The kicker is that it will require the Eels to move away from the chook raffle local club model and enter the 21st century.
Phil, maybe the governance review is also looking at this and that is why nothing is happening to this point.
Being interstate I am not sure the tie up with WSW but have always though Parra Leagues should sponsor league first and be a sporting club second forming ties with strong different sports. I remember in Fitzy years we had some association with Parramatta RU and also some soccer club.
WSW, to me, is an ideal association as sport played when league is not and they are a strongly supported club. The support flows thru to the club, increased membership, increased bodies thru doors resulting in increased bar, pokies and entertainment receipts. A strong financial base means continued support for those sports it fosters.
If worried about WSW supporters controlling board and league becoming second string, the constitution could be changed to reflect its origins and also funding priorities. However, just recently, the NRL talked about sufficient funding to make all footy clubs profitable. Being successful on the field, meaning more bums on seats, is another way to ensure profitability. So maybe in the future the footy club may not need any funding from the leagues club. We can only hope.
Right now, the Leagues Club has control of the football club meaning they're handling the finances. Under the old set-up it would've been impossible for a WSW aligned board to get any control over the football club, now it's much easier.
Hey Glenn, the way I see future financial modelling is this. I think it's possible that a well-run club that got better at generating revenue could break-even. We're a fair way from that point, as best as I've been told, but it's probably something a really strong, entrepreneurial executive team could turn around in the next three to five years given the additional funding.
However, the goal of the club should never be to do away with its Leagues Club funding. That is our primary competitive advantage. What you want to aim for is that you drive your revenue up to match up with your core operational spending, and then you use your Leagues Club funding to fund either infrastructure funding or discretional spending. So you would invest in better training facilities at the sales yard, or bring in specialist coaching or buy a new whiz-bang IT system. As League-enthusiast members, we need to make sure that the Leagues Club stays committed to putting money into the Eels. The 3P board progressively cut back football spending to increase Leagues Club profits and it resulted in two wooden spoons.
The competitive goal-posts don't change in anyway with the new funding agreement. Everyone gets more funding, which in itself actually reduces what you can do with the money because it's going to have an inflationary impact on things like coaching salaries. So if the Leagues Club uses the fact that the Eels don't need the money as much anymore and reduces funding, then our competitive position can actually go backwards if we reduce when others don't.
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