Do you really think the board would be willing to commit fraud and suffer all the possible ramifications just to make the attendance figures look good for the sponsors?

Its only fraud if they get investigated and caught, thats why i asked the question earlier about who audits/regulates this type of thing.

LAst train to manchester is at 22.20, but it dosn't get you back untill 3.42 so no-ones gonna be on that, the one after is a 5.20am

The accounts are audited and have to be approved and submitted. Similarly a tax return. Both will list sources of revenue, including numbers of paying customers. It's a little naive to assume that HMRC will just take the word of the club for how many paying customers they've had over the season, particularly if there's a large variance from publicly-declared figures.

It's also a little naive to assume that current or future sponsors will rely solely on declared crowd numbers when making decisions.

So they stipulate actual numbers of paying customers? and they stipulate what price each individual customer has paid? So the numbers of paying customers may include x number at £5, x number at £10, x number at £20, x number at £55 in a corporate etc etc Wheres the proof to back this up. Creative accounting i guess where needed. Happens everywhere. I just dont get how you think this audit is going to be any more than 90% accurate and why clubs wont fiddle it to suit them.

Sponsor generally rely on strength of the brand. One of the key indicators around strength of the brand when the product is a rugby league team is local support of the team, key measure of this is home attendances as well as away attendances. I never ever said rely solely on crowd numbers, but its a bit naive to dismiss the impact around sponsorship!!

I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, but I'm assuming they can't just pluck a number out of the air and have everyone believe them. Certainly not the way it works at my company. We have to account for where every last penny of turnover has come from and where every last penny of expenditure has gone.

I know, bizarre isn't it, but far more believable than more than 4000 people turning up and paying over £20 to watch that shower of shiite

Is that OK then?

What legal implications are there with the club announcing a particular number of people in the ground? The SMC know how many are in which count towards the tenancy agreement. VAT will be accounted for based on gate receipts and the income will be accounted for in the accounts. To suggest there is some kind of legal implication for the announced figure to be accurate is nonsense

Of course it wouldn't - we'd be cheering on Salford obviously.

Always makes me laugh when people claim the club are making the attendance figures up..... and just to prove it