When Aston Villa went up into the premiership I don't know how people get to know these things but the Barnsley owners then became the richest owners outside of the top league, and probably richer than half of those in the premiership, but to be fair to the owners they have never made a secret of what their intentions were from the start and that was simply to make a profit and not pour it back in, hopefully nobody comes knocking from tomorrow for the next month, not sure if your aware redders but that same rumour mill says they've got £6million to spend in this window aye I'm same as you I'll believe it when I see it

Its not in the too distant past that we had people taking money out this club by way of inflated salaries.

And nepotism.

Nice word Wollo and I’m afraid was true.

I think anyone thinking of investing in a RL club, with a view to making a profit, especially at the likes of Wakefield, would be extremely naïve. I would imagine MC and other investors would be glad to break even!

Just seen an article where HKR are buying their ground and adjoining land back from the council for £1.9 million.
No other details.

i think from what we have seen and heard from MC over the last few years that he quite clearly has Trinity's best interests at heart and truly loves the club. He's appears to be quite willing to stand a few minor financial losses, and I think this is quite common in RL in general, and to an extent in AF clubs, but overall I think investors in the latter are in it for the money.

Nobody has ever made money from owning RL club directly that’s for sure. However indirectly well that’s a different story. All sports or riddled with chancers and hangers on who operate on the fringes, rarely are they the people who actually run the clubs.

Ted Richardson employed his offspring that’s true, Glover used the club as some sort of personal members club, yet both will have lost money.

I think the true test for any investor is not to break even but to know that all the money you lost went to the right places. So far MC seems to have the edge by some way.

Sadly not - I work with PE a fair bit, and I can tell you with certainty that investors are looking to *make* money; the most common way being to buy an asset, increase its value, then sell it on. I see no possible way that could happen in any meaningful way with a RL club, in particular ours, and especially now that the possibility of a new stadium being gifted to the club has died a slow and painful death.

I meant an investor in a RL club, which I suppose is a contradiction in itself because as you say there is no profit to be had.

In pure business terms investing in a RL club at any level is such a poor choice as to be almost suicidal. Thank the lord there are still a fair few of these masochists about or the game would be dead by now. Yeah some take the mick whilst some are utterly destructive but most club owners are on a hiding to nothing and do their level best and certainly can’t be accused of being in it for the money or in our case not even the glory!

£1.9 million is bloody cheap for the land, never mind including the ground. Do you have a link to the article.

It’s not as straight forward as that. The land is already owned by various bodies including the club and council. I think this is more of a restructuring to allow all involved to develop the site better, the site apparently has numerous interests owning bits of it meaning development has been restricted. HKR’s part is probably quite small but will be very useful to them.

Makes more sense now, which is why I asked if there was a link.
With the lack of future certainty around the next TV deal for SL, it would be a very brave man (or woman/other investors) to pump millions into a RL ground.
Although things seem to have gone very quiet on the additional N. American sides coming into SL (and Championship etc), IF there is any kind of grand plan to include additional expansion sides, without actually expanding the numbers in the top flight, clubs like KR, Cas and Trinity would be very brave to embark on huge investment if there is any chance of them being replaced by a plastic N. American club at any point in the near future.
It's absolutely ridiculous that our sport doesn't have a decent strategy for the future of the game.