Category: Explanations & Expansions

Why One Board, One CEO?

Readers of Parts 19–21 may wonder why Roger Cowan spent more than sixteen years arguing for what appeared to be a relatively simple administrative reform. Why did the issue matter so much to him? Why did he keep returning to it despite repeated setbacks, opposition and criticism?

The answer lies in a question that had troubled Panthers almost from the beginning:

How could the Club pursue a unified direction when rugby league and the licensed club were governed separately?

The issue was not new.

Readers familiar with the events of 1971 may recognise some familiar themes. The removal of football club secretary Merv Cartwright and treasurer Ron Partridge arose from concerns about the administration of rugby league affairs and accountability for financial decisions. Although the circumstances were different, the disputes that emerged again in the late 1970s centred on many of the same questions. Who should make decisions? Who should be accountable for those decisions? And what happened when agreements were not honoured?

From the time Penrith entered first grade rugby league in 1967, the football club and licensed club operated under separate governance structures. The arrangement was common in rugby league, but Roger increasingly came to believe it created problems that could never be fully resolved.

It would be easy to assume the conflict was simply about money. Certainly finances played a part. Rugby league required increasing investment, while the licensed club was trying to strengthen its financial position and pursue long-term development projects. Yet Roger’s frustration was not that football sought resources. In his view, the licensed club had repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to support rugby league and invest heavily in its future.

The real problem arose after decisions had been made.

Budgets would be negotiated. Agreements would be reached. Plans would be approved. Yet time and again, football expenditure exceeded agreed limits or new commitments were entered into without the knowledge or approval of those responsible for managing the Club’s overall finances.

From Roger’s perspective, this was not simply a financial problem. It made long-term planning almost impossible.

A licensed club board could approve a football budget, commit to major development projects and make decisions based upon expected cash flows. If those assumptions later proved incorrect because spending commitments had changed, the consequences extended well beyond rugby league. The entire organisation could be affected.

By the late 1970s, these tensions had become increasingly public. In December 1979, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on financial difficulties and disagreements between the football and licensed club administrations. Around the same time, Panthers was preparing for the enormous financial challenge of constructing its new Mulgoa Road complex.

SMH 1979 Dec 9 – click image for full article.

Reports to members in 1980 revealed the extent of the concern. Directors reported that the football club had exceeded an agreed annual budget of $485,000 by more than $100,000 during 1979, while additional commitments had already been entered into for the following season. To the licensed club board, the issue was not simply the amount involved. It was that decisions affecting the future of the entire organisation had been made outside the framework that had previously been agreed.

These events helped bring the governance debate to a head, but they do not fully explain Roger’s determination.

For him, the issue was ultimately one of organisational unity.

He believed Panthers would never achieve its potential while parts of the organisation operated according to different priorities, different assumptions and different lines of accountability. A football club and licensed club could share the same colours, the same members and the same ambitions, yet still find themselves working against each other.

His solution was straightforward.

One board would determine policy and direction for the entire organisation. Management would then be responsible for implementing those decisions. Everyone would work towards the same agreed objectives and everyone would be accountable to the same governing body.

Not everyone agreed.

Some viewed Roger’s campaign as an attempt to centralise power. The perception is understandable. After all, he was advocating a structure that would eventually place responsibility for football and licensed club operations under a single administration. His persistence over sixteen years inevitably raised questions about motive.

Yet there is another interpretation.

Roger was not arguing that football should receive less support. Nor was he arguing that rugby league was less important than the licensed club. Rather, he believed the entire organisation should operate according to a common plan and that all parts of Panthers should be accountable to that plan.

Many years later, Panthers would use concepts such as “twin citizenship” to describe the idea that people belonged not only to their immediate team but also to the wider organisation. While that language did not exist in the 1970s, the philosophy behind it helps explain Roger’s thinking. He wanted rugby league, club management, directors and staff to see themselves as contributors to a single enterprise rather than separate interests competing for influence.

The first major breakthrough came in 1980 when a single board was finally established. Yet even then, the model remained incomplete. Rugby league and the licensed club continued under separate chief executives. As described in Parts 20 and 21, the compromise produced its own difficulties and did not resolve the underlying tensions.

It was not until the end of 1983 that the structure Roger had advocated for so long was fully implemented. One board and one chief executive became responsible for the entire organisation.

Whether that decision alone explains the improvements that followed is impossible to know. Organisations are rarely transformed by a single reform. Nevertheless, the years that followed saw a stronger emphasis on cooperation, planning and shared ownership. The workshops that led to the Five by Five program, closer relationships throughout the rugby league district and a more integrated approach to football and club operations all emerged during this period.

Reasonable people may still disagree about whether Roger was right. They may also disagree about the extent to which later successes flowed from the governance reforms he championed.

What is difficult to dispute is that he regarded the issue as fundamental. For more than sixteen years he returned to the same argument, often in the face of resistance and disappointment.

Ironically, that persistence contributed to one of the enduring myths about Roger Cowan — that he was somehow anti-rugby league.

The evidence suggests a more complex reality.

His long campaign for “One Board, One CEO” was not driven by a desire to diminish rugby league, but by a belief that Panthers could only achieve lasting success when every part of the organisation was working towards the same goals and operating under the same commitments.

Whether one agrees with that belief or not, it became one of the defining ideas in the history of Panthers.

Source Material*

The following documents are extracts of the relevant sections of larger reports:

Related Topics

Related Themes

Financial Management · Governance · Board Decisions · Culture · Club Structure

* Resource material courtesy of The Ausburn Collection

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Feeney Electronics – Ahead of its Time

The following material draws upon club publications from the early and mid-1970s, later interviews and recollections from former Panthers staff and executives.

By the mid-1970s, Penrith Rugby League Club was doing something few licensed clubs in Australia would even have contemplated — experimenting with computerised gaming and security systems.

The project emerged from a practical problem. As poker machine revenue increased across the club industry, so too did concerns about theft, scams, inefficient cash handling and poor operational oversight. Panthers had already experienced some of these issues directly. Roger Cowan believed tighter systems and better information could reduce losses and improve efficiency.

What followed was an ambitious venture into electronics and computer technology through a company known as F.C. Electronics Pty Ltd.

Contemporary club material described F.C. Electronics as producing “probably the world’s most sophisticated poker machine security system”. While that language reflected the promotional enthusiasm of the period, there is little doubt the system was unusually advanced for an Australian club environment of the 1970s.

The system attempted to electronically monitor poker machine activity from a central control point.

Early F.C. Electronics monitoring reports published by Panthers during the 1970s showed the system identifying jackpots, abnormal machine activity and security irregularities. Click image to enlarge.

According to material published by the club, poker machine events were coded and transmitted to television monitors around the club, allowing supervisors to immediately identify jackpots and machine activity. The system also attempted to monitor irregularities including abnormal wheel movement, door openings and jackpot inconsistencies.

The operation relied on technology that, at the time, would have appeared extraordinary to most club employees and patrons. The club’s own promotional material featured computer consoles, printers, monitoring screens and electronic reporting systems — all at a time when many organisations still relied entirely on manual record keeping.

Promotional page for F.C. Electronics showed an interconnected monitoring and reporting system linking poker machines to central computer and television displays. Click image to enlarge.

Former Panthers executive Bryn Miller later recalled that the system was “so far ahead of its time” that most clubs did not even possess a computer when Panthers was experimenting with electronic monitoring and reporting.

The project extended beyond poker machine security. F.C. Electronics also produced industrial control equipment and commercial products including lighting dimmers and environmental control systems. Club publications noted that the company’s capabilities had expanded sufficiently for it to seek work beyond the club industry itself.

Yet the venture also carried substantial cost and risk.

Club material acknowledged that F.C. Electronics operated at a financial loss during part of this period, while Roger Cowan later conceded that Panthers may have persisted with the project longer than it should have. Had the technology evolved commercially the way he hoped, the rewards may have been significant. Instead, the project became one of several ambitious experiments that pushed the club into areas rarely explored by licensed clubs of the era.

Club journal material outlined the broader ambitions of F.C. Electronics, which expanded into industrial and commercial electronic products beyond gaming systems. Click image to enlarge.

Even so, many who observed the system believed its core ideas eventually became standard throughout the gaming industry. Automated monitoring, centralised reporting, electronic jackpot recording and machine data analysis are now routine parts of modern club gaming operations.

In that sense, the Feeney Electronics project reflected something larger about the Panthers administration during the Cowan years. The club was rarely content simply to follow established practice. Whether the experiments succeeded or failed, there was often a willingness to try ideas that others considered unrealistic, premature or unnecessarily ambitious.

Feeney Electronics was one of the clearest examples of that philosophy in action.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Financial Management · Governance · Growth · Innovation

Image Credits: All images in this post — including the feature image — are from Panthers Annual Reports. These were kindly provided by The Ausburn Collection.

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The Panthers Magazine Arrangement

In February 1966, the Penrith Rugby League Football Club published the first edition of its official members’ journal.

The publication, issued monthly, was introduced at a critical point in the club’s development — as it sought admission to the New South Wales Rugby League First Division.

A central feature of the journal was a column titled From the Secretary’s Desk, written by Roger Cowan in his role as Secretary-Manager. In the opening issue, Cowan outlined club activities, membership growth and upcoming events, and referred to the club’s ambition of securing promotion to First Division.

The magazine was largely written and produced by Cowan and served as a means of communicating with members during the club’s First Division campaign.

In June 1968, Phyro Holdings Pty Ltd was registered, with Roger and Phyllis Cowan as directors. The name itself was derived from their first names — Phy from Phyllis and Ro from Roger.

In the years that followed, responsibility for publishing the club’s magazine — The Panthers Magazine — was transferred to Phyro Holdings under an arrangement approved by the club committee. The structure included conditions relating to profit limits, auditing of accounts and the remuneration deetails of Cowan’s role.

The arrangement formalised the transfer of publication responsibilities from the club to Phyro Holdings, under agreed financial and audit conditions.

The magazine arrangement — and the broader financial relationship between the club and Phyro Holdings — was later subject to scrutiny. Questions raised in subsequent decades focused on governance, transparency and the management of related-party transactions.

The Panthers Magazine became much more than a publication for PRLC members – it was a powerful community voice and was distributed to over 200,000 households in the Penrith Junior Rugby League District – Katoomba to Blacktown.

Those issues are examined in more detail in later sections of this project.

Related Topics

Related Themes

Financial Management · Governance · Growth

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From Tin Shed to Taj Mahal — Scale and Contrast in 1963

In 1963, Penrith and St George Rugby League Clubs each opened new premises. The contrast between them — in scale, cost, and ambition — highlights the gap between an emerging club and one already established as a powerhouse of the game.

To describe Penrith Rugby League Club as a minnow compared to St George Rugby League Club in the early 1960s is no exaggeration.

In 1963, the St George Dragons had already secured seven consecutive premierships, a run that would extend to eleven.

In 1963, both clubs opened new premises.

In March, Penrith Leagues Club opened a new building adjacent to the old Boys Club, at a cost of approximately £150,000.

Official Opening Program PRLC 1963

In July, St George Leagues Club opened its new premises at Kogarah, with construction costs approaching £1,000,000.

William “Bill” Buckley (1906–1973), Chairman of the Australian Rugby League, officially opened both clubs. During a tour of the new St George premises, struck by its scale and extensive use of marble, he is said to have remarked: “This reminds me very much of the Taj Mahal.”

The nickname endured.

St George Leagues Club — Photo: Joan Hatton

Both developments marked a move beyond earlier, more modest beginnings — the kinds of facilities often remembered, and sometimes simplified, as the “tin shed” era.

For St George, that transition had already occurred.

For Penrith, it was only just beginning.

The scale of the St George club did more than impress. It set a benchmark — one that emerging clubs like Penrith could not yet match, but would, over time, seek to close.

From the Narrative

This contrast sits alongside the developments described in Part 4 — From Small Beginnings, where Penrith’s early structures begin to take shape against a backdrop of more established clubs.

A Little Extra

Here is the complete 1963 Opening Program for Penrith Rugby League Club — it was a big day, starting with lunch, then evening and supper — and lots of dancing! And plaudits to the Penrith Rugby League Orchestra who must have exhausted by night’s end.

PRLC Official Opening 1963

Related Material

Related Themes

Financial Management · Growth

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The Temby Inquiry

The Temby Inquiry was a formal investigation, commissioned by the New South Wales Department of Gaming and Racing in 2004, into the governance and operations of Penrith Rugby League Club.

Conducted by former senior prosecutor Ian Temby QC, the Inquiry examined a range of matters relating to the administration of the Club and the conduct of individuals associated with it. Its report, delivered in December 2004, marked the culmination of a period of conflict that forms a central thread of this series.

While the Inquiry sits outside the early timeline of this series, it becomes an increasingly important reference point as the narrative unfolds.

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The Impact of a Turnover Tax

A turnover tax on gambling is a tax imposed on the total amount of money wagered or “turned over” in a gambling activity, rather than on the profits generated by the gambling operators.

For example, imagine you take $100 to the races, and you place a $100 on the first race, it wins and you now have $350. You continue to bet $50 on each of the 7 remaining races. So, if you add up the amount you bet it comes to $450 – your first bet of $100 plus 7 bets of $50.

A turnover tax on this activity means the tax is calculated on the total value of the the bets placed, $450. Yet, the amount spent by the punter was only $100.

This example shows the very best result for the betting provider would be for the punter to finish the day broke – and the provider would have a revenue of $100. But they would be paying tax on $450.

Of course, it would be possible for the provider to lose hundreds of dollars to this punter, yet still pay tax on the $450 turned over.

Industry opponents of turnover taxation argued that the structure materially reduced operators’ capacity to improve return-to-player rates.

The mathematics of a turnover tax make it extremely restrictive – and, in fact, for some gambling games (like blackjack) even a small turnover tax would mean the game would not be viable.

For example, poker machines in NSW have a minimum return to player rate of 87%.

At a theoretical level this means a couple of things:

  • Firstly, it means the theoretical revenue for the operator is 13% – that is the operator can expect to retain $13 in every $100 staked on their games.
  • Secondly, it means the theoretical turnover for the player is 3.42 times their orginal stake. So, starting $100 and playing until depleted will generate a theoretical turnover of $342.

In the case of a starting stake of $100, theoretically the operator will retain $13. If a 3% turnover tax is applied their obligation to the tax office will be 3% of $342, which is $10.25.

Now, imagine an operator wants to offer a better deal to their patrons with a 90% return to player. So $100 stake produces a theoretical $10 revenue for the operator. The turnover is $388 and a 3% turnover tax will produce a tax obligation of $11.74 – so the tax office will take all the operator’s revenue plus more.

Critics maintained that turnover taxation limited pricing flexibility and distorted game viability.

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