NRL: Parramatta Eels to launch legal fightback

Parramatta Eels staff set to be deregistered have decided to fight the NRL's salary cap punishments in the Supreme Court, The Daily Telegraph reports.

Eels officials issued with show-cause notices for breaching NRL registration rules, including chairman Steve Sharp, chief executive John Boulos and football operations manager Daniel Anderson, are reportedly seeking an injunction following the NRL's crippling punishment for the club's systematic salary cap rorting.

NRL: Eels docked 12 points, fined $1m for salary cap rort

According to reports, the urgent legal action follows the club's meeting with NRL boss Todd Greenberg on Tuesday morning.

The case is being heard in the Supreme Court by duty judge Justice Rowan Darke with the Eels officials claiming the salary cap punishment prohibits staff from carrying out their duties under the Corporations Act.

NRL integrity unit boss Nick Weeks says the investigation into Parramatta players and player agents has not concluded.

"There's a phase of this investigation to come and that's going to involve looking at some of the material we have and the conduct of player agents," Weeks said.

"Ultimately that will be passed across to the agents accreditation committee if in fact we identify material that we think they want to look at."

When asked if players knowingly were involved in salary cap cheating, Weeks said: "The phase of the investigation that has concluded today with the breach notices and the announcement relates to the club and officials".

"There's a piece of work that we still need to do in regards to agents and we will look at the conduct of some players as well. In an ideal world we would have revealed all that at one time.

"It's a bit difficult to make a broad statement across all the different types of conduct we're looking at. In some cases it would be perfectly reasonable for a player to be under the impression that he has a legitimate third-party arrangement with a company. We might look at that from a different perspective from the salary cap rules."

Former Eels chief executive Denis Fitzgerald believes the police should get involved in the incident, citing the payments of up to $3 million over the cap.

"That was the figure that shocked me because that's undisclosed third-party agreements," he said. "That leads to (questions about) is there fraud involved? I do believe the New South Wales police force must get involved and I do believe that the Australian Taxation (Office) should get involved too when that sort of money is being spoken about."