Quote: crashmon "Looking at this from a commercial sense, if your a London Broncos accountant masquerading as a CEO, if you have been told you will be certain of being in the 2x10 structure if you move to PL, regardless of squad and League status, why would you tell the fans that you would be playing a shell team for the next 2 years as we are assured of being in the 2x10. If you did the most fans would say ok, we will be back in 2024, we will spend our money on other activities, and you end up with gates of 200 hard core who don't mind losing by 60+ each week.
They must have known they would lose fans with the joke squad this year, but at least they would have the Season Ticket revenue for 2022 in the bag.
After all I think they abandonded their existing fans, and hoped to replace them with Dons fans, plus new locals. But thats not going to work with a shell squad'"
It seems entirely possible the club thought along these lines but for every £ they are saving on players they are spending on facilities we don't currently need. The smarter accountant might have found a way to secure PL but not move until we actually needed to. The reality of the situation is that we won't make progress towards Hughes 5,000 target with this squad. He isn't even turning up himself. If the club has sacrificed this season it is a very cynical move and those locals who have showed up will have had a pretty bad first impression. I can't think it is helping retain long term fans either. Hughes even seems to be screwing over Skolars as well.