Just watched it. Waste of time as there was no in depth analysis. Interesting stat that the average career length of an RL player is a mere 4 years and that the verge pay is £60k. Wilkin who was interviewed said players worried about paying the mortgage not funding their investment portfolio!

The RFL don't agree with the analysis while Hethrington mentioned he wanted to see bad management at some clubs got rid of. Slightly contradictory that. Named no clubs and wasn't asked which ones.

If Warrington and Saints are on the edge of an abyss with their financial troubles then I hope Wigan will rally round and help support us with financial aid in our hour of need.

As we all know it is a family sport and thats what makes the game of ours so great, the knowledge that clubs like Wigan would put the interests of the wider game first and help bail their neighbours out.

I'm sure we would. We know how much we are loved, and would love to help, even if it was to destroy us...

I think Wigan's debt is circa £5m whilst Warrington's is circa £2m.

I recall Saints wiped all their debt out the other year by converting loans to shares but I wouldn't be suprised if they have loaded further debt onto the club since then in developing the stadium.

For the life of me I can't think which two clubs would have accumulated debts of £20m between them.

London surely are hemmorhaging bucketfuls of cash by the day and must be a contender. They have had no shirt sponsor for two years for a start, along with around 1000 season ticket sales and the rental agreement at the Stoop.........

No mention of who the debt is owed to though. Looks like a usual hack job by the BBC on the eve of the season. Premier League clubs are in debt to the tune of £2.4 billion, a drop in the ocean compared to £68m yet I don't recall the BBC sounding the death knell for the game. Funny that...

I agree

Proper hatchet job with no other aim but to wound.

2 from Quins, HKR, Hudds.

Possibly but in context although the Premier League has such a huge debt - it's earning potential both at club level and TV rights are such that the level of debt compared to income overall is probably comparable to RL's debt/income level or maybe even lower . Also the PL are under pressure to reduce debt levels (UEFA rules etc).

Without detail on who the debts in RL are owed to and how this relates to income at the various clubs involved it is impossible to have a clear picture but it is probably fair to say that quite a few RL clubs are in a very precarious state financially and this is not likely to improve much in the short term.

If this was going to be done it should have been an hour instead of a 10 minute scaremongering excercise. "What can we do? Drop the salary cap!" Should we go down to LSE for an opinion? No, let's go to the useless one from forty twenty. No hard facts, no sensible opinion, loads of open ended questions.

Also since when is Warrington the home of Rugby League?

About 2009ish

There were a few programmes on in the last couple of years about footballs financial irregularities and also racism on the terraces so the BBC is not averse to negative stories about football which they cover in more depth than in league. Especially if you listen to the radio there is a lot of discussion on Five Live about footballs financial (un)sustainability.

But of course we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend rugby league is in great health and the sport is run fantastically and its just a hatchet job by the media.

I assume the media were hijacking this board a couple of months back when Hock was first linked with Parramatta and there was a long thread on here predicting that the game was going to end up part time again.

Warrington are the Challenge Cup Kings you know...

Edited