rlCouncil rejects rescue dealrl

Looking like Salford could also be in a bit of trouble after the council have now rejected the proposed loan. Sad and worrying times for the Salford fans, hope they manage to get something sorted soon.

Maybe it would have been an idea for RFL to use the sky monies withheld from us to setup a central fund to assist clubs in financial difficulty rather than gifting the other 13 clubs (Salford included) an extra 50k of central funding?. With the 650k we forfeited this year the RFL could have provided the loan that Salford council have knocked back.

Would hope RFL will provide them help in same way as they assisted us TBH.

Our game is now in a hell of a poor state.

I hear radio ads for the world cup on national radio, yet clubs in the heratland of the game are withering and dying!

The RFL need to look very closely, not just at what our sport aspires to be, but what it actually can be!
Wakefield, London, Bradford, Salford - all had or are having serious financial problems that have threatened the club. Add this to the anecdotal suggestions that Hull KR and Cas could be in bother too and youve got half of the games elite competition that is on the brink. and these are only the ones we know about.

I sincerely hope that the RL community, led by the RFL, rallies around for Salford like it did for us, but my fear is that because they are not seen as a big club, they have been in and out of SL over the years, and the fact that we are currently in the off season means that they will be allowed to go to the wall.

I hope not!

The RFL should provide the exact same help to Salford that they gave to Bradford. Should being the important word there. Only time will tell. Sad situation.

Give hundreds of thousands of pounds to an idiot and then take their ground off them when he didn't give them it back?

whatever happens to salford you can guarantee every man and his dog will come on here reminding you all that the RFL bailed you out and if they dont help salford why not and you will get this every time a club is in trouble

Rugby League is on its way down the tubes.
I think it's time to brush up on the RFU rule book and prepare for the inevitable.
The up side to this is that in my experience Union games don't seem to attract the chav elements now seen at so many RL grounds.

I'd sooner watch paint dry.

Enjoy your pimms

I think you may need to brush up on RL history and where the game came from.......

I agree.
On the issue of our funding for next year being distributed to the other clubs, has this actually been announced anywhere by the rfl/superleague/us?

I was looking for the story via google and the t&a but cant find anything (other than the fact we are having funding withheld), but I'm guessing I just missed it? Or did it just appear verbally from a forum?

Crusaders, Wakefield, ourselves and Salford. And this is happening [iwith[/i some kind of licensing agreement. Something needs to change for RL to become self-sustainable and perhaps a model sport that is reliant on the support of it's fanbase rather than TV money and sugar daddies... it's not like the sport has that much to lose. Plus a lot of England's best players could go to the NRL for the real money and that'll probably help the international team!

It's a stark choice between having to have this happen again to other clubs or ensuring that no club runs at a loss and having to bite the bullet and have semi-pro players playing at the top level.

It was mentioned at forum last week and I think it was mentioned in T&A report of the forum too. What ?I've never seen is the justification for withholding the money. Wakefield and crusaders didnt get money withheld for entering Administration. If its a new measure thats been introduced since there administrations to deter clubs from going down that route then fair enough, But if thats the case then Salford face having the same penalty imposed if they go into admin. If the money witheld was used to pay the creditors then I could at least see some logic it behind it, But just handing it out to the other clubs in the competition makes it look like a bribe and penalises the new owners who arent at fault for the previous owners mismanagement.
I suppose part of Salfords problem is that they dont have any assets to sell/get a loan against. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the initial RFL loan to us and the subsequent sale of the lease to them at least it was an asset that we had available and could use to bring in funds. The actual cost to the RFL of helping us was very little in monetary terms. They'll get the money back from buying the lease several times over in rent (although I suspect a deal will be done where we buy lease back in a couple of years once RFL are satisfied as to the new owners intentions) and the monies advanced for wages were the sky monies we were entitled to anyway as we'd fulfilled our side of the sky contract by playing our fixtures.

Thats what I thought, cheers Mat. This is why I'd like a full press release from thre rfl explaining everything that happened in transparent detail, because the drift of rl collective memory now seem to run along the lines of the rfl gave us a blank cheque out of their own pockets and an unending credit line, so therefore with rlfan logic "why are the rfl not doing the same for Salford....etc etc" thats not my memory of the situation, we had a lot of rfl intervention (good and bad), but like you say the rfl actually ended up some cash down but asset up so will probably end up about level or in profit in the medium to long term.

The same set of circumstance does not apply, but I do hope the RFL and other clubs do everything they can do in this situation to help Salford. And like you say, helping Salford would seem a better use for the windfall of not paying us £500k, or whatever it is, rather than handing it out as a sweetner to the other clubs.

The RFL should also ban Wakefield fans from having an opinion and voicing it. Threaten the team with points deductions unless their message boards are shut down. That will do.

Other clubs seem to think they handed us money for no reason. I think the RFL paid wages purely because it was midseason and they didnt want to disrupt the rest of SL during last years campaign. The RFL did that when it looked like we'd be liquidated. Mr Khan came in very late to buy us & is now paying the RFL back plus some by not getting any sky money for next season.

For Salford to even be compared to the bulls and what happened with they would need to have someone buy them out in the last few days before liquidation after god knows how long in administration and that someone would then have to pump money into a loss making business and be hundreds of thousands down in their first year as new owners whilst central funds are withheld..

I hope it doesnt get that far with Salford and that someone comes in before the RFL would have to look at getting involved. Who would want to be in the same position we were in September?

We did have help from fans and a lot of clubs.. what concerns me is Salford dont have nowhere near the fanbase Bradford have..