Are Widnes one of the clubs currently pushing for a season restart or are we one of the reserved clubs who think the projected costs make it too risky?
I would say not to play as we havent invested in the squad to go up this year like Leigh, Toulouse, London and Featherstone. Furlough lasts until October although with some costs coming in from 1st August. No point playing without crowds as no TV money. Wait until mass gatherings of 5,000 comes in like in France as that would cover all the Championship clubs games. Will it be in time for this season? Who knows.
I would say not to play as we havent invested in the squad to go up this year like Leigh, Toulouse, London and Featherstone. Furlough lasts until October although with some costs coming in from 1st August. No point playing without crowds as no TV money. Wait until mass gatherings of 5,000 comes in like in France as that would cover all the Championship clubs games. Will it be in time for this season? Who knows.
Hard to see any other view thaf would benefit us tbh. Others with big cash committments will have a different agenda, not necessarily with us in mind!
I suppose it should be about the good of the game and whether clubs can afford to stage games.
It is no good pushing clubs to further financial collapse, just to accommodate Beaumont and co. Would Beaumont be so keen to re-start if, as likely, there will be no relegation from or promotion to SL? In this case, would there be any point in playing League 1/Championship games with no spectators and no chance to see the game on tv?
The RFL are going ahead with the CC starting in August. Will Widnes and other League 1/Championship clubs play in the sixth round?
The RFL are going ahead with the CC starting in August. Will Widnes and other League 1/Championship clubs play in the sixth round?
It is feasible for Widnes to play in the CC and behind closed doors IF its televised and the cost been levied to the RL. However it still does not answer the furlough problem so in my opinion a big NO to playing in the CC or anytime this season. lets hope there is a vaccine found soon as we could be saying good bye to RL and Widnes forever.
The current furlough scheme runs to the end of October and is unlikely to be renewed except on a limited basis in specific industries.
If we played and assuming that tv income would cover testing costs, could the players in the squad and coaching staff come off furlough for two weeks training and the game. If we lost, presumably they could be put back on to the furlough scheme. If we won, then the club would have to meet the player wages until the next round when maybe, there may be some scope for spectators to be allowed back in the ground.
I have no idea what income is generated from televised games and it may well be not feasible for clubs to come out of furlough for potentially one game, but that is the difference between re-starting the league with no income being generated for any games.
I wonder what is the purpose of the Government loan to RFL. Is it to enable them to continue paying the over paid executives of RFL/SL or subsidising the likes of Moran and McManus in SL or is it to help the game survive by playing as soon as possible?
Widnes and most ground tenants should be ok, no wages to pay no ground rent and they have ST money and we have VIQI. The lack of stewarding needed would reduce game costs so why not play behind closed doors. Surely the government grant should be used for testing so lets at least start playing games. Only people losing out would be the ST holders but nobody mentions this.
Widnes and most ground tenants should be ok, no wages to pay no ground rent and they have ST money and we have VIQI. The lack of stewarding needed would reduce game costs so why not play behind closed doors. Surely the government grant should be used for testing so lets at least start playing games. Only people losing out would be the ST holders but nobody mentions this.
Maybe VIQI could make a statement on how the funds are holding up. Have many people dropped out? Is all the funds in the bank, as the Furlough system surely does away with the need for the funds to be distributed.
Questions, questions, questions..
Paulie xx
You cant play behind closed doors as the club would have to take players off furlough and pay them with no TV funding and no match day income. And potentially not even any promotion. Furlough is until 31st October. Until crowds can attend then no point the Championship coming back.
Also if the Championship clubs arnt back, in my opinion you cant continue with the Challenge Cup.
You cant play behind closed doors as the club would have to take players off furlough and pay them with no TV funding and no match day income. And potentially not even any promotion. Furlough is until 31st October. Until crowds can attend then no point the Championship coming back. Also if the Championship clubs arnt back, in my opinion you cant continue with the Challenge Cup.
We do not get tv funding, the players wages are already there with a little central funding and 2000 ST sales plus VIQI. We get very little match day income barring walk up fans. there are two options start in August or cancel the season, Starting in October has a huge knock on effect for 2021 season.
We will have to wait and see the proposal. However IF it was behind closed doors and no promotion to SL I would reject it on the grounds of it being pointless.
SL are playing for the SKY contract money, simple as that. Crowds must make some difference as they are on the verge of collapse and need a £16m loan that will need paying back.
It's a terrible situation but we should in my opinion come out of it better than most. We dont own the stadium with all the costs for up keep and have secured a rent holiday from the council. We haven't budgeted and missed out on hosting events like pop concerts at the stadium as the money would go to the council not the club anyway. The part time squad this year means Furlough payments should cover most players wages as its 80% up to £35k. Also the players have full time jobs so many can hopefully return to work now so have that income plus 80% of their rugby wage. Lastly we must have the biggest supporters scheme in the Championship in VIQI, so as long as a lot of people havent cancelled, those funds must really be building up by now? We dont know if any have been used as no updates.
The main attraction of the CC is to give the crowd and players a one off chance game. It is most unlikely that even if we win the next round that we would get to the final. So is that 80min of excitement the cost outlined by Ditton d.
I would say no to playing that one game, tbh.
If crowds are allowed to return, even for a short and largely pointless few games, that might be worth it just to remind us what we have missed, almost as a start of the close season getting ready for 2021. I would be guided by TS on that, he might have some ideas.
If we can maintain roughly a full VIQI quota we should be in a much better place financially next year and be ready for a major effort at last.
The game, as a sport, is under severe stress, as we have generally agreed. Get out of this season without bankruptcy and we will have done OK. Hopefully there will be some realistic revisions to the game as a whole but don't count on it!
If the Challenge Cup continues we should play in that behind closed doors. it is very difficult to see us being able to cover the covid testing costs. I am missing my rugby as much as anyone but being in the older vulnerable group I would not attend matches until the R number is much closer to 0 rather than 1 or slightly above locally as it is now.
Really difficult call this one, if we do play in the cc that would mean taking the players off furlough to start training? Perhaps not all the players -That would be a minimum of 3 weeks before and we could not refurlough so would have to pick up wage bill until season end. If the championship does not return there would be little point playing in the cc as it would probably only amount to 2 games.
I understand that the current furlough scheme runs to the end of October, so we may have to start paying players from the beginning of November anyway. On this basis and assuming that there will be some tv income, a one off cup game may be worth going for - and possibly (well unlikely then!!) some progress to later rounds.
I don't think we will play this year, and will probably be the right thing, but in doing that I think there are two main problems.
For clubs it's currently been 3 months since we last played, that feels like an absolute age. Imagine how long it will feel in another 7 months when the 2021 season starts. Many people, I suspect, like me, will fall out of love with it all. I have in these last 3 months. People will get used to life not watching Widnes and the habit of going the game will fall away.
Secondly, it'll be incredibly amateur on the sports behalf that they're just writing a season off completely. Not sure it would do the image of the sport and good.