Don't think there will be any cash to sign Widnes players - Craven would be a stand out signing for any Championship club.

Yes I heard that we had chance to sign Craven a few season ago, heard we offered Part Time terms of circa £20K and additional training/employment from one of our sponsors. At the same time London were offering him in region of £60K on FT contract, but he declined both.

Widnes have announced that they have gone into Administration https://www.runcornandwidnesworld.co.uk ... istration/

Widnes have announced that they have gone into Administration https://www.runcornandwidnesworld.co.uk ... istration/

The thing is, as we know from Bradford and Leigh, players start to want to leave and find new clubs as soon as they can which only compounds the clubs problems. It almost every season now that some club ands up in a mess like this. Im so glad the RFL are promoting clubs like Toronto because soon there will be no heartland clubs left. And what an insult it is to Widnes that the Toronto boss said he would buy them if they relocated to Liverpool ! Tosser!

The players, especially if they're full-time, have problems of their own to overcome.

These problems are not of their own making. Unlike the club, where the problems are generally entirely of the club's own making. The players shouldn't be asked to "rally round".

Im not by any means saying that the RFL are great, but it annoys me when people use these situations to criticise the RFL. This situation was caused by poor management at Widnes, as most of their own fans point out on their forum.

RFL are often an easy scapegoat. But James Rule was allowed to get involved despite having 9 months to run on a ban. And who is exactly is auditing the club's to make sure they are run correctly/legally? Self inflicted by RFL have a job to protect the game as a whole which this affects.

We are really feeling the affects of a decade + of Nigel Wood.

I understand what your saying about the RFL, however look at their track record. They promoted the licencing concept. They accepted applications from clubs who were lying about their incomes, ground improvements etc. This lead to clubs over stretching themselves on player budgets, selling tickets at low prices to get more people through the gates and basically not being able to deliver on their commitment to deliver the product the club promised, our friends at Bradford being the prime example. I am not having a go at Bradford. When the licences came out the year Wakefield were going to fold, they gave them a licence. That’s not the clubs fault that’s the RFL. Giving the majority of funding to SL clubs And ignoring the lower leagues for decades is their fautl. Alowing the SL clubs to self govern themselves is a very very poor decision. That’s why SL clubs and greedy chairmen want to cut the lower leagues adriift to keep the money themselves.
Yes, clubs have to take responsibility for their own running, finances ect it does not help, indeed it hinders if not disrtoys clubs who are trying their best on small wages, pay cuts to playing staff small crowds ect that are trying to promote RL, get local people involved with the club and the game andget more people to watch Rugby League. The RFL need to see their vision and guidance for the game does not deliver what they imagine or tell us it will.

Isn’t this usually the time that Mike Ashley steps in,once the debts have been written off?

Mate - you're not getting it.

The clubs decide what they want the RFL to do and the RFL does it.

That's the problem with the way the game's governed.

Sure - the RFL can make suggestions but they only happen if the clubs vote for the proposal.

God forbid.

I agree that the RFL have been poor in their overall supervision of the Sport, Unless we have an all powerful RFL, that sets out how everything is done in detail, each board will "interpret" the best way to run the clubs - however its important to keep in mind that they have had to tread a careful balance to avoid the Super League Clubs breaking away - and all of the top clubs, and some in the Championship, have strongly pushed against this type of controversial control step.

The present structures make it clear that whilst the RFL will regulate clubs retrospectively on the salary cap, they have no responsibility for the day to day finances of any club - that is clearly the duty of the board of directors. Legally a director must not spend money the company doesn't have or believe it will get. It is the "believe it will get part" which has been the downfall of so many clubs, including Fax in the past. Widnes appear to have spent all their season ticket money for this year in keeping going over the winter as they had no other cash to pay the bills. Fax and most clubs are are no different, we struggle during off season to have enough money to pay the bills, if we are properly run this is well planned for, if we are not we end up asking players to take salary cuts or worse we fail.

Our Board have a duty to ensue that the club is financially well run, we know how often in the past the push for onfield success has failed here and sadly it looks like that has been one of the problems at Widnes. You mustn't spend what you are not going to get and every penny you do spend needs to be accounted for and spent wisely. I just hope thats what our Board are doing.

Poor's not the word.

Every club is represented at the RFL.

Even in Will Carling's day, there were only 57 old pharts governing the RFU, representing around 1900 clubs.