Parramatta Eels board is meeting to consider what action to take in the wake of allegations of financial irregularities and accusations of bullying.

Matters the club plans to investigate include recovery of money owed by suppliers, documentation relating to contract negotiations, and the validity of third-party payments to players.

The Herald revealed this week that Eels CEO Paul Osborne has borrowed a large sum of money, rumoured to be around $50,000, from Parramatta chairman Roy Spagnolo.

Mr Osborne has since denied he owes money to a senior player who was promised a lucrative deal to join the club in recent years.

Mr Osborne subsequently told another newspaper that the player, Justin Poore, was owed money not by him but by a sponsor.

Mr Osborne was also pursued by the club's accounts department last year after being slow to return $9000 in cash he collected from the sale of football jerseys. Club insiders told the Herald that Mr Osborne said he had paid $5000 in cash to a senior player.

The $9000 was eventually repaid - in $100 notes - by money provided to Mr Osborne by Mr Spagnolo.

On top of that Mr Osborne was required to repay the club $35,000 he had racked up on his club credit card.

When asked about the $35,000, Mr Osborne initially told the Herald he couldn't remember the amount, nor could he recall how it had been repaid.

The Herald has been told that a $9500 repayment was made through a cheque from a company associated with Mr Spagnolo.

Mr Osborne, 45, blamed his wife Sally for the error, claiming both his work and personal credit cards were red and that his wife didn't notice the difference. However, friends of the family are angered at Mr Osborne attempting to blame his financial problems on his wife who, up until recently, has been home-schooling the couple's nine children.

Mr Osborne, who was on a salary rumoured to be $270,000, drives a top-of-the range BMW, and lives in a house on several acres which he bought at Kenthurst two years ago for $920,000. In April this year he bought a $1.9 million holiday home in Byron Bay. However, his Byron Bay purchase has soured with the Bank of Western Australia threatening to foreclose.

Mr Osborne's mortgage on his ill-fated holiday home was witnessed by Justin Taunton, the Liberal Deputy Mayor of Baulkham Hills who was paid $20,000 by Parramatta Leagues Club to do political lobbying. Over a two-month period last year, Mr Taunton ran up hundreds of dollars in cab fares on the club's account.

In August, Mr Taunton was found to have breached his councils' code of conduct by misusing the council cabcharge acount for private purposes.

Matters came to a head at Parramatta recently when Glenn Duncan, board member and head of the club's major sponsor, Pirtek, resigned.

Mr Duncan confronted Mr Spagnolo at a board meeting on October 6 about whether he had ever loaned Mr Osborne money and, if so, why had he not declared a conflict of interest in dealing with Mr Osborne's future employment.

Four days later, Mr Spagnolo sent a confidential email to his fellow directors on the board.

"At his request, and using my own resources, I advanced Paul monies not all of which have been repaid," he wrote.

"Having reflected on the matter, and in the interest of probity," Mr Spagnolo said he would not deal "with Paul's future employment while Paul is personally indebted to me".

However, when asked about Mr Osborne's future with the club last week, Mr Spagnolo said: "He will be with the club."

Club lawyers are also trying to negotiate a settlement with a young female employee, who alleges that Mr Osborne had abused her, accusing her of gossiping about a relationship he was allegedly having with a female colleague.

Mr Spagnolo said that as Mr Osborne had retained lawyers it would "inappropriate to comment at this time" with regard to questions about the costs and purpose of a trip to India last year by Mr Osborne and the colleague.

Mr Osborne, who played first-grade rugby league for St George Illawarra and Canberra, is a former police officer and a former member of the ACT Parliament. He became the Eels chief executive in mid 2009.