Quote Slugger McBatt="Slugger McBatt"I don't agree that the game is in tatters. It's just that one club decided to run itself at a level it couldn't afford. It is notable that there has been no attempt to recoup money by selling assets, i.e., players, and it seems that the Bulls club wants its cake and eat it. It wants to put a top drawer team on the park, regardless of whether or not it can afford it.
The situation in each club has been different. Crusaders were saddled with debts accrued by the previous owner. We were hit for six by the decision to call in the ground for PI, as otherwise we would have received a payment that would have sorted the tax bill out. Bulls have been relying on crowds of 10,000 that only bring in gate receipts as if there were 4,000, due to the cut prces.'"
It's not the Bulls in isolation Slugger, there are big financial conserns at many clubs, either the image rights issue, the need for a benefactor, clubs living beyond their means, falling fowl of HMRC etc etc.
The constant in all this is the RFL overseeing all this.
Any club could go pop at any time and I wouldn't be surprised, that isn't what SL promised and the licensing and independent auditing tells us.
We only find out about these problems when something goes wrong and at some point the RFL are waste deep in the Shizen or have gone some way to cause it or cover it up.
SL is not only in tatters it also through trying to portray itself to be some kind of achievable best practice eutopia, encourages clubs to over reach and thus cause themselves and end up in difficulty, and unable to get out of it.
It lacks honesty and transparency and the RFL and sky peddle the lie.