The transcripts from the meetings, included in the NRL's breach notice against the club and five officials and published by Fox Sports on Monday afternoon, show Parramatta executives and directors opening discussing the Eels' TPA program over the past three years.

They identify the Premiership Club, a concept announced with fanfare in 2014 as a "premier business-networking group for western Sydney and beyond", as a vehicle for the Eels to compete with rival teams in the third-party sphere and it demonstrates that officials appeared well aware the scheme was in breach of NRL rules.

After discussing the formation of the entity at a board meeting in February 2014 then chief executive Scott Seward describes John Boulous, then the Eels' chief operating officer, as "the main point of contact" for the third-party payments system, explaining he and chairman Steve Sharp had to be distanced from it.

"Yeah, John will be the main point of contact, and importantly the reason for that is both Steve and myself are the one that have to sin the Stat Decs for the salary cap so it can't be either of us, so John's the right point of contact from a commercial perspective and that's the way it will run," Seward says.

Sharp then adds:  "I arranged a meeting today with a potential third party organisation so, we went around a bit, but at the end of the day we got to where we wanted to get to, they've come up with some ideas and some interest and I'm pretty confident we'll get something out of this particular group and probably get some pretty strong leverage out of it."

At the next month's board meeting in March 2014 the desire to keep secret the functions of the Premiership Club, which was later shut down, is made clear. Boulous tells the meeting: "There's a note ... about the Premiership club in the minutes, I don't know if it should really be in the minutes ... I think that should be taken out."

Seward replies:  "Yeah, we can talk about the Premiership club now. Do you mind if we have a look at that? Guys, we have to be really careful with this. You know, it's sailing as close to the wind as breaking the salary cap possibly can. So I just think we need to be, we shouldn't have anything in the board minutes about the Premiership club. Technically we should have nothing in writing about the Premiership club either, because the Premiership Club is not ours.

"It is a third party organisation. So we need to, you know, when we get contacts pass them on, and we'll go and do the deal but — and we'll obviously, communicate everything that is happening in that space, but we need to be so goddamn careful with this it's not funny. This is not the Bulldogs and it's not the Melbourne Storm stuff, but let's not even get anywhere near that."

Board members Tom Issa and Peter Serrao are then are involved in a discussion about whether the talk about third-party deals should be included in the minutes. "I don't write the minutes," Issa said, before Serrao adds: "They're only draft minutes anyway."

In another recording from March 2014 football manager Daniel Anderson tells the meeting the club of the need for third-party deals, saying: "You need a million. Seriously. Because the Bulldogs have got $2 million. The Roosters have got $2.5 million."

Seward adds later in that transcript: that the system had been set up to appear at "pure arm's length." "There's transactions between the business and the Club and there's transactions between the Club and the players and player managers. That's, that in effect is our 'Slush Fund', for want of a better word," he said.

At a further meeting on June 25 2015 shortly after the exit of Seward, there is lengthy discussion about a third-party deal for the now-retired veteran second-rower Anthony Watmough with PJ Promotions, during which board member Tanya Gadiel says: "Sorry, that's the f-word, that's fraud isn't it. That is fraud."

Later, another director Andrew Cordwell says of the tape: "Can we turn off the recorder? Can we just turn it off? Is that possible? I just want to speak openly. Can you turn it off and suspend the meeting or something?

Sharp replies: "It's off mate."