I once made a genuine offer to the prettiest girl at school years back.

She told me to feck off as well..!

Pretty Girl, Wigan??? haha yeah good one, nearly fell for that!

He's starting to look a little bit pathetic now. I am very rich I will buy the fastest racehorse in the world for my stable ........ Doesn't quite work like that in rugby league. I'm afraid you need a different business model than just flashing the cash herr doktor. I'm trying to think of the positive points he could use to promote Salford to the superstar players he would like in his stable ........ Can't really think of any apart from the pound notes and there are restrictions in place on that . Did anybody explain the salary cap to him before he bought his " big club". He needs to shut up now and start looking elsewhere for players before he becomes a complete laughing stock.

I did say when the good Dr took over that i quite liked the "paper-talk" he generated, and that i thought it was brilliant for both Salford and RL. But, that interview was just embarrassing...

When Wigan started rebuilding in the early 80s, they didn't attract the Lydons, Gregorys and Hanleys overnight.

The team that won the John Player Trophy in 1983 contained news signings like David Stephenson, Henderson Gill etc. We won at Wembley in 1985 with lads like Steve Donlan, Ian Potter, Brian Case.

All quality players, but not from the very top bracket in the game.

It was a slow but steady process of improvement, and it took two or three years before the marquee players started turning up.

One thing that does impress me with Salford is the presence of Graham Lowe. Not sure how effective a coach he'd be these days given his health issues, but Lowey is one guy who knows what he's talking about.

Salford I wonder if we can convince them to take Lauaki and Tuson off our hands

Yep .... If Waney laughed when the original offer came in he must have sed himself when he saw that interview

I have only seen a very small snippet on the local BBC news this morning but am assuming that this is similar to the interview people are referring to. The people that make the news are journalists and will edit heavily and use words to introduce a piece that will portray whatever slant they want to the story.

The words the BBC news presenter used (every time) to introduce the clip were "says he doesn't understand why the offer was rejected". The connotation in that statement is that Dr Koukash thinks that any club should take the money and thinks that no club will want to keep their marquee players rather than cash in. This is followed by a clip of Dr Koukash saying that he made a serious offer and wishes for his club to be considered as a credible rival bidder against the NRL and RU. For such a clip a more apt introduction would be "Dr Marwan Koukash says that Salford are looking to bring in the best players and hopes that players will see the club as one that they wish to join"

The guy is probably frustrated as before trying to get Sam he has been turned down for Morley, Chase, Hock, Jacob Emmitt and I think a couple of others whose names escape me. He is likely to be wondering how he is supposed to do any squad building if all offers are rejected out of hand. He probably does not understand that the difficulty any club that did let a player go would have in getting a replacement will stop most from accepting an offer mid-season (no matter how big). He is new to the sport after all.

We also have a coach who, regardless of what you think about his record on the pitch, suffers from verbal 'brain-farts' when dealing with the media. Think back to last season when he did Wire's motivational talk for them and this pre season with his talk of preparing for life after Sam - resulting in even more media talk of him leaving us this year. Whether he did laugh when told of the offer or not, to say that he did to the press was a mistake and very disrespectful to the Salford club and all connected to it. The media as a result are always now asking Dr Koukash if he was serious about the bid. You can hardly blame anyone connected with Salford for being annoyed and speaking out about their club not being taken seriously.

While I agree with almost everything you say here, I feel that Salford are being extremely naive in the way they are going about this. It reminds me of Leeds under Dougie Laughton, who spent more money than Wigan in their attempts to build a top side, and yet never came close.

It can never just be about signing big names, especially not in the era of the Salary Cap.

Graham Lowe's comment about there being "a lot of things at this club that are broken" was very pertinent. Salford currently are a shadow of the great Salford of the 60s and 70s in so many ways. In Manchester, they occupy what's now almost an RL-free zone in terms of professional rivals, and yet they can't seem to attract any fans. So they need to get their marketing sorted out. In Phil Veivers they have a head coach who, for me, is a non-entity. That's something else they need to look at. In terms of playing personnel, they need to rebuild from the bottom up - that's what Wigan did in the early 80s, and only move for marquee players later on when they've re-established a reputation as credible contenders. Now that they've got bags more money, they've no excuse for not recruiting local starlets, and more importantly, for not hanging onto them.

The more unrealistic targets they move for at this stage, the more they'll be knocked back and the less seriously they'll be taken.

After all this publicity the real recruitng is going on.
They signed Gleeson and McGoldrick neither of whom had a club. They have also loaned Griffin who'd no future at Leeds. The two recruits from down under play this weekend.
First things first, they have to get their team into the top eight. Agar did it with Wakefield who's squad was made up generally of players whom no other club were interested in. Noble did it at Crusaders. Both made the top eight by this method. Salford are doing the same regardless of the publicity.
What obviously didn't occur to the good Dr is that at present, players under contract won't even think about going to Salford.
It's going to be a long hard slog for all of them at the SCS and I for one wish them the very best of luck.

I was about to post almost exactly the same.

I find it deeply sad that many on here are knocking the guy. He is prepared to bail out Salford, put money behind them and attract quality players into his side.

We should be applauding him rather than ridiculing him.

I disagree. With the right financial backing and the right signings you could take an Amateur RL club and turn it into a top 8 club within a year, such is the level of RL in this country outside the top 4.

I heard this on the news this morning. I'm afraid my first reaction was just laughter. I do wish him all the best in getting Salford up and running, but that interview was just painful.

Although in the car on the way to work this morning the newsreader said he'd attempted to sign Sam Watkins so maybe he got our Sam mixed up with someone else.

There's a bit of money in the game now, with a lot of clubs having rich backers. Decent stadia too. Let's bin (or revise seriously upwards) the salary cap and have some fun with the game.

and let some clubs go to the wall while the rich continue to dominate? spoke like to true idiot!!