You're all missing the most important factors. If you look at the statistics, more clubs seem to get into financial trouble in seasons when Leeds get all the 50-50 calls and win the grand final. Also in the first 15 minutes of a new season, Wigan are the best team at avoiding a winding up order by about 3.86%, and according to try-tracker Sam Tomkins plays a large part in that.

Yours Sincerely

Phil Clarke

I'm with you there Phil, you've got to get the message out!

Yours

Stevo

Jesus, imagine them in a tax court.

"Why doesn't the barrister try an early chip over the top?"
"You must not let that cheque bounce, it's simple stuff".

Perhaps they should bring back the Phil Clarke 'financial' gains meter. At last a proper use for it.

I blame the one road in one road out. Who wants to spend longer in the car park than watching the game

At Salford? Me.

League Express reporting this morning that HMRC have joined the winding up petition. Apparently we owed SG £15k which has been paid, but we now have a PAYE bill of £150k. Peel are not in the running to buy the club but we're talking to someone else. Apparently.

Who knows.

Also mentioned was players wages due this week. There seems to be only one way this can go. Who wants to come in and throw 200,000 straight down the pan.

Given the "tax avoidance by not making a profit" method that big businesses (Starbucks, eBay, Vodafone etc)seem to use to avoid paying UK taxes, I'm surprised that our loss leading sports clubs end up in trouble with HMRC........

They get in trouble because they don't pass on the stoppages they've made from people's wages. Not paying the Revenue was a great way to iron out short term cashflow problems; thankfully now rightly being clamped down on.

Is this the same for VAT on goods sold at the ground too?

The RFL should step in to prevent administration.
If Salford owe £200k then the RFL can pay this and deduct the amount from their TV revenue over the next 12 months.
I think they helped Leigh out some time ago by doing something similar.

As long as the rfl pay the money directly to the taxman and anyone else whos owed then i agree.
The bigger question is how can a sl club be close to admin over such a small amount of money?, surely there are far deeper rooted problems at the club.

A few days ago the amount outstanding wad rumoured by some to be about 5k. Now its 150k. I reckon you'll get short odds on the amount being higher still especially as the players wages are due on Thursday.

A couple of us attended the hearing this morning. Was one other Salford fan there and a female journo, assumed to be from the MEN. Made a few scribbles as the hearing went along:

The petition from SG has now been withdrawn. The only squabble with SG/Salford now seems to be over costs which are still live. Impression seems to be that Salford are going to try and get them back later on in the proceedings. S.G. served a schedule for costs, but it was unsigned and non-serviceable apparently.

Patten and Anderson have now been substituted onto the petition, however. None of the costs were mentioned out loud and we couldn't get close enough to the emails being passed around. The barrister for Salford, a Miss Darcy, tried to get Patten and Anderson fobbed off on a technicality, due to not putting in their notice on a certain form in compliance with some rule (rule 4.9, if I remember rightly...) but the judge wasn’t having any of it, there’s no stipulation that the form is required, apparently. Would’ve just meant the players could bring their own petition against the club, but good old Miss Darcy did a sterling job on that front. There was a couple of other minor technicalities, Anderson’s home address not being on the notice, for instance, but the judge thought it daft to block it on those grounds.

Patten goes on now as the main name on the petition as he’s owed more, I assume Anderson will be on as a secondary name.

The whole HMRC issue seems to still be hanging around, however, with no real mention of it other than stating that they wished to join the petition but had no representation there this morning. Seemed very, very strange, but who knows what’s going on there. Seems they won't be on it as things stand.

Petition now to be amended, re-served and re-advertised. Next hearing is on the 7th of January. And my final scribble just says “costs reserved.”