Sorry. I read it as the hearing after the adjournment had been told it's paid not the first one (until I read the words that hearing)

No, but if The RFL were straight....Wigan, and in particular, Ian Lenegan would be in trouble.

I'll ask again , is it reasonable to insist that only some of a squad of players are paid to minimum wage when others dont have to be ?

Or even that you have to pay your under 18's more money than you pay your 1 st team ?

Read back through these forums, you'll find certain people consistently defending the decision to go with LS, stating that it was the right decision at that time, hailing it a roaring success. Even claiming that he was responsible for the spread of the junior game in Wales.. I personally think they are barmy.

You forgot to mention the barrel that he held the RFL over, something to the effect of "Give me a license in 2008 or I'll pull the plug on this whole joint"... Yet still people didn't hear any alarm bells ringing.. Of course, us critics were forever cast aside as flat cap, flat earth morons.. Well I'll tell you what, I'd rather be a flat capper than an expansion at all costs lunatic any day of the week..

I was thinking the same - thats twice in past week or so that TB has a different version of events that went on at Widnes. 1st it was Widnes being liquidated unlike Crusaders and now it was the board after Stephen Vaughan who was responsible for spending money we didn't have.

Stephen Vaughan authorised all of the signings for 2007 and then quit of the day (or the day before) our 1st league game. If I remember correctly the remaining board members found about £300,000 to fund us to the end of the season, but the massive tax bill was the straw that broke the camels back. I can't really blame the remaining directors for being unable or flatly refusing to pay the bill for the carousel fraud.

I find it surprising for tb to be wrong about Widnes' financial troubles at the end of 2007.I thought he was quite an authority on the subject,after all he does post about it on a regular basis.If I didn't know any better I would suspect he actually enjoys pointing out the club going into administration that year.

I find this amusing TBH, you are wasting your time posting these bits as we all know tb is never wrong when it comes to Widnes.

If I was a little more paranoid than I already am, I might think that he has something against Widnes

Really? Because I see very little factual difference between my post and yours.

For instance





I could be wrong on the exact timing of the carousel fraud – and you’ll no doubt notice the qualifier ‘iirc’ – but both statements are exactly the same on when Vaughan left. I’m not sure how you can say one is wrong and the other is a correction when they’re saying the same thing.





Again no difference in facts, and I recognise the situation the other directors found themselves in.

The only factual difference is your claim that



You’ll have to forgive me, but I seriously doubt that. Unless you paid all players a year’s salary up front. Indeed, you yourself undermine that claim when you say the other directors were "paying the players out of their own pockets" – something that can’t have been the case if the money had already been spent when Vaughan was at the club.

Obviously, the money was committed, but it clearly wasn’t spent.

We’ll also have to disagree on whether the only choices facing the board in 2007 were



Other clubs have found themselves with player costs that exceeded their income – Halifax in their final year in SL spring to mind - and they went with a third option

and



because

a) the club didn’t have the money – obviously if the directors were paying out of their own pockets – and clearly couldn’t afford the players when Vaughan’s promises turned out to be worthless;

b) the strategy was clearly to win the 2007 GF and win promotion – it can’t really have been just to make it to the end of the season and then go into administration, irrespective of the result – and it clearly was a gamble. And clearly one they lost. And the consequences of that loss were placing the club into administration as soon as they could, the Monday after the GF.


In fact, the only real difference between us is the degree of culpability you attach to the other directors. Club loyalty is fine and admirable – though if I were in your shoes I wouldn’t be so generous as to extend it to a group of people who not only let Vaughan get away with what he did during his 18 months in charge, but effectively killed my club in October 2007.
Vaughan is the big villain here without a doubt, but I don’t think the other directors can escape culpability.

Thankfully, both for Widnes and the game as a whole, Steve O’Connor came on the scene to resurrect the club – and I look forward to you rejoining the game’s top flight after a successful licence bid this time round.

And that will be true even if it’s Cas that is the unsuccessful bid in this round

Nothing at all - though I do have something against the hypocrisy of saying: we should have been admitted in 2009 because we'd had a financially dodgy crook in charge in the form of Steven Vaughan and had gone into administration, but it wasn't our fault, but Crusaders shouldn't have been admitted in 2009 because they didn't have that financial history, but Leighton Samuels was a dodgy bloke.

Considering the rule regarding administration is no longer part of the license criteria there is nothing to stop the RFL from award the Crusaders a place in the context of financial difficulties.

Morally it's wrong, but other than that the RFL make up the rules and will adapt them to suit.

Shouldn't that read "the chairmen of the current SL member clubs" rather than the RFL?

Who knows?

Nor was it, one assumes, in 2008 - otherwise it would have prevented Widnes from submitting an application



I agree that each application should be judged on its merits. I've no reason to think that wasn't the case in 2008. I've no reason to think that won't be the case in 2011.*

* with the obvious exception that one club (from the championship) will be judged separately and early, giving it a clear advantage. But that's the RFL, hey, always going out of their way to give advantages to non traditional clubs.



Anybody who bothers to pay attention.

And was, apparently, still solely responsible for the club going into administration more than half a year after he left.