The owners of Crusaders have made a statement saying that they have made a loss of £500k in the last 6 months. So, they come out of administration relatively debt free in January and 6 months later are posting huge (for the size of business) losses. Just shows how bad things really were and how they were never ever in a position to sustain themselves at anytime in SL..... www.wrexhamafc.co.uk/page/NewsDe ... 50,00.html

The owners of Crusaders have made a statement saying that they have made a loss of £500k in the last 6 months. So, they come out of administration relatively debt free in January and 6 months later are posting huge (for the size of business) losses. Just shows how bad things really were and how they were never ever in a position to sustain themselves at anytime in SL..... www.wrexhamafc.co.uk/page/NewsDe ... 50,00.html

Sean Maguire,ex Saints,gave an excellent interview on Radio Merseyside last night in which he lambasted the RL and their attempts at expansion into Wales.Here,about 16 and a half minutes in. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00j1w11

Sean Maguire,ex Saints,gave an excellent interview on Radio Merseyside last night in which he lambasted the RL and their attempts at expansion into Wales.Here,about 16 and a half minutes in. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00j1w11

The Crusaders have had two of the best con men in the business.

Moss and Roberts are crooks. They managed to lose 0.5 million this year, even though the sky money is well in excess of a million. Someone tell me how thats possible.

Samuel is well known for his abilities to hide money. He wrote off all the debts of his business on the crusaders. hence the massive debt they had. Guy is the biggest crook in the world.

I bet the RFL had no idea.

Many posters on here, the ones with a tiny sense of business acumen, could see what was going to happen.

There were a few posters in the opposite camp claiming things were sweet. Unfortunately, the RFL were of the same mind.

The powers that be at Red Hall must take full responsibility for this fiasco, if the Crusaders hadn’t sent their Dear John letter, they would have been in, and it’s scandalous.

There are people working for the RFL on relatively very good salaries, they’ve also brought in independent ‘experts’, yet, only the Crusaders withdrawal from the process has forced their hand.

The RFL are not in place to micro-manage member clubs.

If clubs are breaking employment/immigration law, that's their lookout.

Utter bollox , if they're paying for it , and they were , then they should have been making sure things were being done properly

The RFL knew all about the VISA issue , they colouded with Samuels to fast track the CC trhrough to SL

I see the much commented on inquiry never happened , did it ?

The man talks sense Frank,something which seems to lacking at the RL.I said myself at the time in 2008 that Crusaders should have been commended on their efforts so far and told to continue with their work and reapply in three years time.It was the obvious thing to do,And if they were not around in three years then tough.But being a Widnes fan meant that I had a vested interest and couldn't possibly make an impartial observation.

Yes we all had it thrown back at us didn't we , but strangly as the song goes

" It's all gone quiet over there ! "

If the reports of Crusaders' annual loss are about right, it wouldn't seem to be much different to the amount that David Hughes puts into Quins.

The difference being that Hughes is happy to loose 2 million a year whereas Moss and Roberts were not.

True, but I was more thinking in terms of club finances in general. From what I can make out, any club with average gates much under 7k can't afford to be full time on its own resources.

Or certainly not competitive.

My recollection from when Crusaders went to Wrexham was that the new owners stated publicly that they were in it to make money for the football team. Perhaps things have changed slightly, but ultimately, they were in it for the profit. Some owners, like Ken Davey, are in it for the love, and that's why it works there, and at Hull KR. I'm not sure where AG fits at Wakefield. Probably somewhere in the middle. I think he wants to make the club self-sufficient, or as near as damn it, but sees the club as a bit of a sleeping giant. To some extent, I think he's right, as the fans will turn out in great numbers when it suits, but the good patches are not long enough to sustain it.

Moss and Roberts, however, were merely speculating with no historical evidence to back it up. Most people on here said it wouldn't work, but those who did were denounced as flat-cappers. Well, tug that plaid peak, because they were right.

The main problem is the disparity between the wealth and support of the bigger clubs, like Wigan, and those nearer the bottom, but equally Wigan shouldn't be penalised for their success. Achieving that balance between allowing clubs to build on and obtain a reward for their success without making other clubs go bust is a tricky one. The sugar daddys stop it being a permanent one-horse race.

Maybe they need to bring the salary cap down to a level that is sustainable for all clubs? In the NRL they are working towards the salary cap and the grant being equal. Maybe the RFL needs to do the same?

As said anything under 7K is going to leave a hole, throw in a lack of corporate support and that hole becomes much larger. Until the RFL can afford to give any new expansion team double the normal grant they should stop being deluded that RL is a big enough sport to plonk teams in non heartland areas and expect them to be sustainable at a SL level.