It’s what we owe the council. They’re letting us pay it in monthly instalments and helping us but it’s still a lot of money.

As of tomorrow, we won’t be able to pay certain staff.

It's a shame, but that stadium is a bit misleading, ppl think your in a good position but like with leigh ths bloody council take the revenue and you cant make any non matchday income either to top up the bank which is bloody crucial.

Honestly it makes such a difference and was one of the first things down when the hj was planned. There's 14 home games a year, how do we make money the other 350 days a year?

I thought when Steve Rule left, that was a good thing. Obviously not...

Yeah the club don’t get any cut on the bar sales etc/corporate box revenue. They just pay a one off yearly fee to play out of the stadium, the council get everything.

It is quite a large amount, Council Might now call in debt if Admin looming. also saw on social media that O,Neills are owed 200k too.

A lot of hidden debt for a long long time. It’s surfacing now.

That may be the case, but the public of Widnes seemed to have turned their back on the club for a number of years, they have hardly got above 5k since they got back in Super League, if they were getting 8k plus they would still be making enough money to run a competitive side. Fact is maybe they should have volanterrily stepped out of super league 2 years ago and tried to rebuild, they may never recover from this.

Have you got evidence they pocketed money?

Net liabilities of Widnes Sport Ltd at 30 November 2017 were a little over £1.4 million according to the accounts. Not sure what’s happened in the 15 months since?

Widnes have never been well supported even when they were world champions

If the board have written off circa £370K of debt *owed to them* then I fail to see how they pocketed the money, Widnes are somewhat like Leigh in this regard, with Beaumont offering to write off ALL of his debt but only to suitable new owners (which didn't happen) therefore Leigh Centurions still owe D.B plenty !

I don't & have never liked Widnes but I wouldn't wish this on any R.L Club, not even Wigan. I hope Widnes can pull through & see better times.

Well I can see Widnes disappearing and I will find other things to do now. Lost my love of Rugby League and how things have been run. Unfortunately the Town has more interest in football these days.

Grim news and this will be unbearably tough on the fans, players and staff.
The return of promotion and relegation seems to have brought a return to boom and bust, the very reason for abolishing the movement between SL and The Championship.
I hope that they get something sorted but, you do wonder whether all the stuff about a new club in Liverpool was being planned with some "inside knowledge" from certain parties.

On a related note, did Widnes receive and parachute payment when relegated ?

For the fans, stick in thare and stand by your club and hopefully something positive will happen. Bradford are rising again and Widnes' history is just as rich as theirs, albeit their success was more recent but, in the 80's Widnes were a great side, filled with superstars, it would be a huge loss for the game if they were to disappear.

I hope that Widnes survives. It has a very good stadium. But it it needs to survive in the Championship. Widnes is just not capable of competing in Super League with its paltry fan base.

Sounds to me like Widnes had been building up a fair bit of debt and their owners weren’t able to keep throwing money away. Some of them have apparently written off £370k of debt. Not to be sniffed at. One wonders what other debts exist and how the parachute payment (if one existed) was spent.

Hopefully they can avoid administration but it doesn’t look good. Like just about every RL club Widnes isn’t an “investment opportunity”. One doesn’t “invest” in a fully professional RL club as they are all (apart from maybe 2 or 3) loss making businesses.

They could in the long run go part time or have a mix of part time and full time – it depends on who comes in. Fingers crossed for the fans.