Audio recordings of Parramatta board meetings are at the centre of findings by NRL investigators that have crippled the Eels' season and, in an unprecedented move, left three board members and two club officials facing expulsion from the game.

Five Parramatta club officials - chairman Steve Sharp, directors Tom Issa and Peter Serrao, chief executive John Boulous and football operations manager Daniel Anderson - have been singled out, but on Tuesday afternoon won a last-minute reprieve in the Supreme Court against their immediate deregistration from the NRL. While it was a small victory for the five, it is only likely to delay the inevitable.

Hours before Parramatta headed to court, the Eels board and Boulous were told of the preliminary sanctions against the club and individuals at an early morning meeting with NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg and Nick Weeks, the head of the governing body's integrity unit, at Parramatta Leagues Club.

Sources said the club hierarchy was left stunned by the extent of the allegations, laid out in a breach notice running to nearly 60 pages and which, it can be revealed, included conversations from recorded board meetings.

Fairfax Media understands that all board meetings were recorded on a dictaphone by former CEO Scott Seward's executive assistant for minute-taking purposes. However, the recordings were also kept on the club's computer server, and are understood to have been discovered when NRL investigators pored over their files, which totalled more than 750,000 documents. Board members were aware the meetings were being recorded, and some questioned whether they should be.

In a further development, Parramatta director Andrew Cordwell, an accountant, demanded in the meeting with Greenberg and Weeks that half of their $1 million fine be deployed towards auditing other clubs. Weeks replied that that would not be happening.

Cordwell was one of four directors - along with former international Geoff Gerard, Parramatta Lord Mayor Paul Garrard and ex-Labor MP Tanya Gadiel - from the seven-member board to emerge with their names clear from the investigation.

The deregistration of Boulous and Anderson, the chairman and two other directors, even though it has been delayed by the court, left a glaring question: who will run the club?

Boulous and Anderson were, despite being suspended, technically permitted to "assist" in management while the club formulates a response to the sanctions and after winning the court injunction it is the CEO and another senior club official, Ian Schubert, who will try to fix this year's $570,000 salary cap blowout urgently. Who takes over beyond that was still unclear on Tuesday.

The NRL offered to parachute in personnel but that is an offer that is unlikely to be taken up by the Eels.

"We're part of the solution; we said we'd help them," Greenberg said. "I want to help this club realise its full potential. The Parramatta Eels have the ability to be a super club in Sydney and we want them to be that but they need to be well managed and well governed in order to do that."

Greenberg would not weigh in on whether former executives and staff members implicated in the scandal - such as Seward and ex-football manager Jason Irvine - would be denied accreditation if they ever wished to return to the game but that would appear highly unlikely.

"We've made decisions today on the evidence presented. There are people who aren't working in the game and if they apply for registration we'll deal with that then."

Justice Rowan Darke enacted interim orders preventing the NRL from restricting the functions of the directors and club officials of the Parramatta National Rugby League Club Ltd.

The orders prevent the NRL from "acting upon, implementing or carrying into effect" the proposed suspension of registration handed to the five officials in a letter on Monday afternoon. The matter will return to the court on Friday and, if the parties can't settle out of court, will require a one-day hearing to argue the legality of the deregistration.

The orders were put in place on Tuesday without any admissions from both sides and the five officials will still need to "show cause" and respond to allegations against them within five days.

The Eels issued a statement late last night criticising a lack of 'procedural fairness' and the NRL's reliance on 'adverse material'.

"The notices about competition points deduction, fine and suspensions that were issued today by the NRL to the club and its officials were done in circumstances where the NRL has appeared to impose sanctions without according procedural fairness," the statement read.

"It is regrettable that the NRL determined to make a public statement about these matters and impose penalties without hearing from the club first."