I'm led to believe they have signed one of the clubs biggest ever sponsor deals, and they are donating £1,000 to Help for Heroes every time we win. Sorry if it's not quite Orford Concrete.

Good. So about £10000 a season. Wish they'd sponsor the team I support.

Not a very good comparison to highlight..................For the record I thought there was an excellent % of Leythers for that game, in comparison to a lot of folk from opposing clubs who could nt make the journey through a lack of a rail link.

Can you tell me which heartland clubs the RFL have helped bail out and the England France game had a bigger crowd than two of the 4 Nations games in an area where RL is their national sport. Not being nasty Wembly because you say a lot of good things to say but your view of the RFL is a little rose tinted sometimes. This next season will see if the decisions that they have made are going to be good for our game because there are more and more clubs every season that are finding it harder to survive and you can't just plonk it in the clubs laps when the structure of the game is biased against them.

Some sympathies with the structral comment... though a 3 year licence was supposed to help clubs in SL and Championship to plan more effectively... but I think you can ONLY plonk it in the lap of the clubs, because they are independent businesses with a pretty good idea of what central income they will receive from tv and sponsorship deals.

Running ANY business is simple - spend less than you bring in, and you'll do well. Spend more than you bring in, and you'll go bankrupt. It baffles me that club directors, who make their money doing this, suddenly forget when they take over a club.

3 year licence....It looks like the Welsh franchise of Celtic Crusaders which lasted one year to become Crusaders for year 2 is now to become Welsh Crusaders for year 3 (so a new club let in each year) due to the fact that the Crusaders are unlikely to survive the winding up order.

rlLINK HERErl

One word, farcical

It also suggests Leigh and Widnes might not be to happy.....can't imagine why

Under the old companies act does it not mean that the company directors are not allowed to be board members of another company for five years. Also any money owed to parties employed by the old company are known as creditors and have to get back their money via the liquidators which never usually happens. Can anyone tell me the differnce between winding up a company and going into liquidation? Does one mean it clears its depts and the other tries to by selling its assetts?

Directors are only banned from being a Director if they are disbarred, which can happen if anything illegal has been suggested, or if they have failed to meet any obligations on them as directors. Companies go out of business all the time, that's not illegal.... although it IS illegal to keep trading when the company directors know it to be insolvent. You get in less trouble for closing a company than for keeping a bankrupt company going.

Winding up is the process by which a company is closed, which can be done voluntarily by the directors and shareholders themselves (if, say, they just want to close a business for whatever reason) or can be forced by a third party that is owed money. Liquidation is an end-part of that process, by which all of the assets of the closing company are made 'liquid', i.e. turned from fixed assets (objects, like computers or cars) into disposable & transferrable assets (i.e. money).

As/when a company closes, its liquid assets (money) are used to pay off anyone that the company owes money to. Anything left is distributed as the shareholders choose, or if not is taken by the government. If there is not enough to pay the creditors, then some arrangement is made to pay a proportion of the debts in an order of priority. If the winding up & liquidation process is no volutary (i.e. is because a third party like HMRC is owed money), that can affect the order and priority in which debts are settled. There can be complex legal arguments about who gets what, etc.

One of the really important bits is the 'Limited' tag on the end of a company name. 'Limited Liability' is a legal status of companies, which means the personal liability of the shareholders (NOT Directors) to pay off the debts, is limited to the amount of share capital (money) they have invested in the company. This can be as little as a couple of pounds. It means creditors cannot personally sue the shareholders to get their money back. Without this protection, nobody would ever start a company.

The only redress creditors have is if they can show that the Directors or shareholders did something ILLEGAL and therefore have a personal liability for the outcome that is not protected by the Limited Liability status of the company. That might include trading while insolvent. But, in broad terms, a company in debt can be wound up, and a new company created by the same people doing the same thing the very next day.

The business over the missing pension payments involves illegality doesn't it, although I suspect Mr Samuels may be to blame there

Whilst I am totally opposed to franchising but not expansion I do not think people put money into any sporting club to make money and so from that point of view I do not think it should be equated with running a buisness.

A backer of a particular club would know how much money he/she was prepared to stump up every season and I expect that would 'or should' determine how much a club spends.

Not sure why they need to mention Leigh or Widnes in that article, its has nothing to do with our club or Widnes.

In effect Celtic /Crusaders / Welsh are looking increasingly like another London Crusaders / Bronco's / Quins.
I hope we get lucky and we see a return and people in Wrexham (its not a million miles from Widnes so hardly 'groundbreaking expansion') really take to the game and become properly part of the fabric.
If however we here of another name change next season then I'm sorry it will be seen for what it is - a Farce.

However once the dust has settled in Wrexham we need to look at why the heartlands continues to diminish to become a football hotbed and our 2nd tier of RL is having so much trouble.
Its all well and good expanding (in fact I'd imagine 99% of Leigh fans are for expansion - afterall we've watched our team in more expansion areas than most clubs) but lets ensure the games foundations arn't rotting - currently for whatever reason they are - last years attendances (expecially in Champ 1) should have alarm bells blasting out at Red Hall.

The Championship and Northern Rail cup need looking at, The Northern Rail Cup HAS to be seen as worth winning for more than a 'chance to apply for SL' and Championship 1 needs completley looking at in detail as the clubs are unable (or unwilling) to manage themselves.

In the Championship we have a evenly matched enjoyable competition but no-one seems too interested in watching it, the RFL and clubs need to do some head banging, in effect the Championship clubs (with the exception of Widnes) need to ignore SL and concentrate on getting our 'product' seen as worthy and worth being part of.

I've banged on about Leighs reluctance to do a family ticket and crazy prices for juniors, perhaps this is where the RFL can come on and part subsidise its lower league clubs and help them out, currently there is little incentive for a family to watch our league in comparrison to SL , RU or football.
If the RFL is making money how about a set amount of family or child tickets for each club purchased by them for sale by the member club at its ground to be sold at realistic 'headliner' prices (£25:00 for 2 adults and 2 Children , £ 17:00 for 1 adult 1 child etc, £3.00 for all children under 16 etc, etc) .
The club gains , but also the game gains, perhaps in return the member club agrees to sell (and push the boat out doing so) a specified amount of England RL tickets for the 4 nations / France game and tickets for the big RL events.

One thing is for sure, with clubs now always being deducted points we have to do something different, I'm pleased Welsh Crusaders are remaining part of the family, more important to me is the family doesn't become 'estranged' ,at the moment we are in danger of that happening.

Are the RFL throwing a lifeline for Blackpool?

Well I haven't looked into what crowds were 'before' not sure how far back you have gone with that one. What I can tell you is in general terms crowds are dropping, only five SL clubs posted an increase this year on last. Millenium 'Magic' is not as magic as it was with crowds dropping each year. And no you don't turn your nose up at 86 million. What was the last Sky renewal.... 46 million? Can't remember but thats the figure stuck in my head.

But surely because 99% of our funding comes from one organisation, the have us by the short and curlys. Also clubs cannot run at a loss forever, sugar daddys still run out of money. If a club is to survive it has to be financially aware. Clubs posting losses year in year out and there are a few of those in RL are going to have to start reigning in their spending otherwise they will go the same way as Blackpool and Crusaders. In the last 3 months, we have had Haven into Administration, Blackpool I think have just about folded, winding up orders for Wakefield/Oldham/Crusaders. Who's next HKR? They haven't turned a profit in at least 5 years.

If clubs are running at a loss they are doing something wrong, if the money is not there you can't pay the players what you are paying them surely