In the last hour Halifax have asked for urgent donations. They have asked for more time of HMRC to pay tax owed but have been refused & ordered to pay next week.
Apparently players not paid last week either. We all knew some clubs would struggle with reduced RFL funding but I personally did not expect Halifax to be one to struggle. This is very concerning. Newcastle & Whitehaven have both recently been in financial difficulty & probably still are. There are probably a lot of clubs in the Championship & League 1 in a precarious position but not yet declared. It is time SL clubs woke up & supported the tiers of the game beneath them before the game implodes.
And we pay IMG to market the game!
The RFL/SL have lost touch with the game at all levels by the looks of it !
SL clubs in the red by seven figure sums, likely to force London out of SL and can't decide on a decent structure for the future.
What do we pay these people for????
@sandgroper Not sure it's got that much to do with IMG, they've only been involved in this mess for a couple of years following decades of mismanagement. Also, the clubs did vote for the new set up, including Widnes.
The only guaranteed income streams for the RFL are from the tv deals/ media rights. Therefore they only care about the cash cow that is SL. If we were still in the top flight I'd be surprised if many people on here would advocate us losing money we earn to give to lower league clubs.
A couple of weeks ago when Whitehaven were in trouble, our fans were trying to choose which players we could take and how it would affect our league position if their points were rescinded.
The comment regarding payment was directed at the RFL/SL ! I can remember when we were in trouble they were supposed to be carefully ,=monitoring clubs to try to prevent clubs going under but that presumably doesn't extend to Wigan and Saints because some sugar daddy stumps up. But if the game is going to be restricted to the number of sugar daddies available God help us.
Clubs playing against the sugar daddy element will go broke just trying to keep pace! And we might be in that mix!
AS far as TV is concerned RL is small beer these days with women's soccer or women's RU much more likely to take over.
We seem to miss the boat at every opportunity. The Olympics contained 'rugby' orientated and developed games in 7- a- side and wheelchair but have the RFL or IMG pressed for our involvement? That publicity was massive and the RL versions should be looking for recognition, maybe play-offs to represent our country.
That is looking outwards whereas IMG only seem to look inwards debating who gets promoted etc.
It really is depressing to see clubs going broke, as we know to our cost. For what it's worth I think that at long last we are moving forward but it won't be easy to get back on top. The SL clubs are shaking because the lesser fry SL clubs like Leigh, Salford etc are shaking the tree a bit! But without a vibrant Championship the SL will fail, certainly if TV draws the line.
Finally!! If there is to be no promotion then the Championship clubs will either dig in as semi-pro and run their own show or the game will die.
Even Saints have problems, £1.3m loss for 2023 and expecting this year to be worse!! They won't be in the same danger as the clubs without big investors, but the game in this country really is struggling when clubs like Saints are losing big money!
@sandgroper I'll say it again mate, IMG didn't dictate policy. They came up with a raft of proposals which the RFL board ratified. It was ratified by a vote. By the clubs.
If there is any anger it should be directed at the vast majority of clubs who voted for it. If my memory serves, not always guaranteed at this stage of my life, I think Salford abstained and 3 lower league clubs vored against it.
I think we both agree on the future of the game and the direction it's heading.
Agreed!
It was big clubs getting into debt with players contracts that brought Sky into the game. It all looked good at first but entertainment channels demand change regularly to keep the viewers interested.
Our game is even boring fans these days certainly in our league and some clubs are overspending to buy in talent rather than produce new 'locals'.
Not a conspiracy, just a mistake.
Probably for the best that IMG haven't been paid anything, they're not exactly doing any good are they?
IMG billed the RFL for a six figure sum last November .Nobody does owt for nowt.
https://www.totalrl.com/talking-rugby-league-rfls-surprise-bill-from-img-raises-questions/
A more recent article from July this year,by Marty Sadler.
IMG consultancy is costing the RFL £450 000 per year and the cost of non executive directors of the RFL and RL commercial adds another £300 000 to the costs being borne by the game.I really don't know what benefit most of those NEDS bring to the game.Are we getting bang for buck ?And quite frankly I'm struggling to understand what IMG do for their money.We put it to the RFL last week and they responded by mentioning the 'digital transformation' and they were 'building the profile of star players'.I can see there has been a significant improvement in the game's digital profile and if IMG have been crucial in doing that then that's good to see.But I can see little evidence so far of the profile of star players rising significantly although I hope we see more as time goes on.It's no secret that the RFL is strapped for cash so an outgoing of £750 000 annually when we're not sure about the benefit in return,seems very expensive to me.
https://www.totalrl.com/cost-of-img-and-non-executive-directors-at-the-rfl-revealed/#:~:text=IM G's%20
Rugby would be better served by realising its place in the world. It's not football.
Top SL clubs are millions in debt, Championship clubs can't pay players. Even in RU, Twickers is laying off 40 staff and RU in Australia is about to implode.
Whoever has told either code of rugby that they can get on the cash gravy train is winding them up.
In this country, I don't think I've ever seen the top level RL be more boring than it is right now. I hardly bother with SL anymore. The BBC's coverage and game selection has been abysmal, I don't bother with that either. Our league is very competitive, and honest, but the standard isn't great nor is the entertainment value.
Wigan might be playing well but the whole thing is a massive bore-fest.