Quote: The Penguin "The stadium is not part of the deal as far as I'm aware? It is joint-owned by, if I'm not mistaken, Salford City Council and Peel Holdings, and they've no interest in selling.
Why should governing bodies supply grounds for clubs? In an ideal world clubs would own their own grounds and be able to realise all the financial opportunities from them. Clearly we don't live in an ideal world but I can't see any scenario where this is a good idea.'"
It is part of the deal I can assure you, Salford Council are making staff redundant every day there was always an outcry about the investment they made, so the council have agreed to sell their 50% share, Peel Holdings tend to sell on developments and properties, they built the famous Trafford Centre and it was based on what the guy behind Peel always wanted, but they sold out to Capital Shopping Centres (they are changing their name to Intu Properties. Dr Marwan Koukash plans to complete the roads with the council so the ground has better access, he would also like to build an Hotel (he owns properties worldwide) and also plans to have an Hostel built for academy players, the things you can so for money!
Regards governing bodies, perhaps so! but why then did they buy Odsal? the RFL should have had a ground in the capital which would have been a Centre of Excellence for the South, the London based HQ of RFL could have been based there, sadly currently the RFL though are hardly keeping their heads above water! rather than basing themselves at Red Hall, out in the countryside, it would have made sense to buy The George Hotel in Huddersfield the home of RL and were the game was formed, which recently went bust! but they would never be able to afford it! It's not common sense for me that local councils support purchasing and building of new grounds in the North, when you look at the attendances they are such small percentages of the latest population figures, could you ever see councils helping football clubs to build new grounds? say Liverpool who with their debts can't afford to build a new ground to replace Anfield.
Time we started to accept our game is in a total mess, it is going backwards, while we have allowed Union to take a firm hold, yes the sponsors they get with real Big money, which sadly we can only dream, okay they may be part of the old boys brigade but for rugby league is it not good enough! I know we knock Gus, but who has been CEO of the RFL and has been in control throughout this period of failure? he survives! it is knocking for the sake of it! would he survive as CEO of a big company I doubt it.