118 replies to this topic

[Mistress_Marlowe]

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The lengths he will go to to soften the blow for his missus when she discovers Neil spent their savings on Morgan's designer shoe collection, and making up the alleged shortfall of £2k a week that the club needs to stay afloat.

[Bedford Roughyed]

Point 1 - not many sports out there not 'bankrupt'.
Point 2- bet he knows who leaked the letter.
Point 3 - he signed Big Willie...

[Jeffles]

^^ Exactly. It's a bit rich coming from Hull KR who rely on Director's loans to be spouting this nonsense.

[Roy Boy]

Nice to see him "bigging up" the game!
Why doesn't he throw his obvious business acumen at soccer?
The same could be said for nearly all soccer teams in Europe!
Is he worried that Allam's money has gone & he's worried about KR's finances coming to a head?
Is it envy that Hull FC have someone in charge with better acumen than he has?
What a tw*t!

Edited by Roy Boy, 03 April 2012 - 11:19 PM.

[ArizonaRobin]

As much as I want us to be in the The Super League, if we can't run at the level needed then we shouldn't be there. That goes for all clubs. If we don't have enough that are able to play at the top level then I think changes need to be made across the board.

One thing I think that is missing from Neil's letter are actionable recommendations on how to take the game forward.

[The Future is League]

Now lets see what Super League club has bent the rules to the limit to get overseas players off the quota list and who costs more on average in wages etc an overseas player or a home produced player?
Now what Super League club has perhaps the highest number of overseas players?
Perhaps that club should concentrate producing home produced players and stop wasting money on has beens and never was players from the NRL.

[roughyed48]

No escuse over the last decade given the money everyone has had.
Too much expansionism -yes
Too many foreign imports and costly foreign imports - yes

I thought the games financial police were supposedto prevent this ?
Scrap the weak and silly easy passport rule ( mother and father only, plus resident in UK for last 10 years)
Limit all impors to 3

[The Parksider]

As much as I want us to be in the The Super League, if we can't run at the level needed then we shouldn't be there. That goes for all clubs. If we don't have enough that are able to play at the top level then I think changes need to be made across the board.

One thing I think that is missing from Neil's letter are actionable recommendations on how to take the game forward.

What we see in the Bulls area is three proud clubs, One owing millions, one being subsidised by millions and one no longer with the fans and the young players their area produces. The Halifax, Huddersfield and Bradford area last year attracted 23,000 paying Rugby League fans, and one multi millionaire sugar daddy, yet because three clubs split the resources they make losses and no stand alone Superleague club on a solid business foundation exists in the area.

What we see in the Calder area is three proud clubs. Ones just gone bust, another is operating on a modest budget, and the third recovering from a fall from grace a few years ago. Last year the area attracted 15,000 fans mainly to poor facilities, and thankfully at least one club has found a multi-millionaire. Yet because three clubs split the resources they make losses and no stand alone Superleague club on a solid business foundation exists in the area.

Hetherington's solvent Leeds look at the "Rugby League belt" to the south of them and see six either Superleague or Superleague wannabee clubs all sharing resources such that in 17 years not one of them has been able to make a proper business of Superleague.

Hudgells own club is a loss maker, and they do Hull no favours attracting quality youngsters away from the KC, as the Airlie Birds bring Radford out of retirement to play.

I'm intrested in Hudgell's comments, but wonder what Mo Lyndsays comments would be 17 years on from his creation of Superleague. What would be his get out plan.

Hudgell attacks the RFL for their interest in "expansion", although I don't know what he thought a governing body of a sport was supposed to do when faced with the end of a sporting apartheid, and the opportunity to spread the game out of it's enclaves in the north. I also don't see that as fair - after all the SL clubs never looked to the RFL for guidance - as soon as SKY cheques were in the post they were off creating the vacuous "Super League Europe Ltd" and setting up their own offices. Bad call Hudge.

Hudgell may not as one poster says, state what should be done in his letter, but he did comment pre christmas in a largely ignored but not challenged by his peers statement in which he seemed to favour an SL of 12 clubs containing London.

Losing two clubs can immediately jettison some of the losses, and give the remaining cubs a bigger SKY subsidy. There have been obvious candidates at some point, but Hudgell didn't feel London should be one of them, and the RFL did not feel Wakefield in administration should have been another, and certainly have not bought Odsal to "fill it" to the echo of Championship size crowds.

No league devoid of enough Sugar daddies can afford to jettison clubs who have them. McManus, Lenigan, O'Connor, Wilkinson, Moran, Davey, Glover, Caddick, Hudgell Hughes and Pearson guarantee their clubs places in SD ("sugar daddy league"). Les Catalans nicely make up the numbers, but if Bradford find a sugar daddy, as looks possible, then Hudgells 12 club plan will have one too many applicants and all will not be that disasterous,

We would however be left with an out and out sugar daddy league.

And if we don't like that the solution seems obvious. Cut the salary cap to £1.2 Million, as well as the clubs to 12, that will work by removing a lot of the expense that creates the joint losses and incrasing the SKY subsidy to each club. Good plan short term, long term things could continue to go backwards further???

Whilst Hudgell thinks the RFL have been fiddling whilst Rome burns, the RFL have been right to look to create an interest in our game in Wales, Coventry, London, Northampton, Gateshead, Hemel or wherever. Top down or bottom up who cares as long as kids across the country are now picking up a Rugby league ball and their dads are taking them along to clubs.

As for the pro-game we need a trouble shooter to sort it out. What IS Mo Lyndsay doing nowadays??

Edited by The Parksider, 04 April 2012 - 06:21 AM.

[The Parksider]

Is he worried about KR's finances coming to a head?

Is it envy that Hull FC have someone in charge with better acumen than he has?

What a tw*t!

He's not a **** why should you make such an attack on him as that?? Hull and HKR were top dogs on amazing crowds (for RL) back in the eighties. Hudgell invested in HKR in an attempt to see both clubs back at the top again. Why not??

His busines acumen makes millions so there's nowt wrong there, although his business of injury claims is under threat. It was said lawyers fees ran at 83% of their clients "compo" and the government want to slash that. Making thousands out of writing silly standard letters may become a thing of the past. Mr. Hudgell may be looking at SL with an eye on that.

Maybe in cosying up to Hull and making noises about the KC he has an eye on a board place with your club

[Just Browny]

If Hudgell's Solicitors were 'bankrupt', would Mr Hudgell blame the Solicitors Regulation Authority? Maybe Kingston-upon-Hull Crown Court?

I doubt it. His letter seems to be from the RLFans Hall of Fame of 'blame the RFL for my own club's incompetence'. How exactly are the RFL spending too much on 'expansionism'? As far as I know they're hardly pumping the money into London, although they clearly lost a few bob on the Crusaders (probably not as much as they'll lose on the Woolly Bulls though).

If you're spending too much, reduce your costs. If you can't afford full cap, don't spend full cap. It's quite basic stuff really.

[shrek]

Too much expansionism -yes

I disagree, you only have to look at the Bradford thread and the "turf war" debate to realise if anything we have to many clubs stacked up on top of each other in a world thats vastly different to the one they formed in all those years ago.

If anything our failure is not to have expanded and now its old established clubs that have had decades to get it right that are set to fail.

As for the pro-game we need a trouble shooter to sort it out. What IS Mo Lyndsay doing nowadays??

I do think we'd make a cracking TV series for something like "The Dragons" or an Alan Sugar type character, would love to see some of the ways in which the game/clubs are currently run taken to task!

[The Parksider]

You only have to look at the Bradford thread and the "turf war" debate to realise if anything we have to many clubs stacked up on top of each other in a world thats vastly different to the one they formed in all those years ago. If anything our failure is not to have expanded and now its old established clubs that have had decades to get it right that are set to fail.

I agree and Browny says "How exactly are the RFL spending too much on 'expansionism'? As far as I know they're hardly pumping the money into London, although they clearly lost a few bob on the Crusaders (probably not as much as they'll lose on the Woolly Bulls though)"

The SKY funds have been available to the established northern clubs for 17 years and the RFL have rightly tried top down and now bottom up expansion fiddling about in the lower reaches of Super League. They were absolutely spot on to try it and although it's not created a new commercially viable market for the pro game, it's certainly helped stimulate the growth of RL around the country and new player pools.

But Hudges comments are always going to be seized on by those who want a return to the old days.

As you point out with great insight the failure to find new SL clubs away from the M62 (not failed yet though Toulouse look very likely to follow Les catalans now) merely leaves the "usual crowd" crammed into three small areas of the north, with most clubs unable to make a go of it without the crutch of a sugar daddy.

Seven clubs a simple car ride from me are hankering after places in SL, six are a spit apart in Padgeland, and the Hull clubs are shoulder to shoulder.

The "Turf war" solution is to ring fence fans and juniors in each area. That'll be really good - a return to the old first division!!!

I don't however feel that we are set to fail en masse in any way. Many of the businesses are impressive like Leeds and Wigan. Pearson looks set to make a massive difference to Hull, look how Moran has brought Warrington on, and same with McManus at Saints, and the new impetus with Glover at Wakefield looks good and Davey's progress is slow but solid. Wlko has Salford advancing at last. We may yet get a sugar daddy at Bradford, going into administration is often the start of that as per Wakey.

Expansion wise France help with the success at Catalans and if Toulouse really have money as they say then who can deny them a place in the circumstances.

Martyn Sadler often has his finger on the pulse and rather than tell us the problem is the clubs are all propped up by sugar daddies, he suggests the problem is there's not enough of them. As some have said it's the nature of football and rugby clubs to be raised a level by the presence of sugar daddies.

I don't know how many we had back in 1996 no more than 2 or 3??????.

Today we only have 2 or 3 clubs without sugar daddies.

So maybe Hudge is a bit miffed that he possibly can't sustain his place as an SD in what has become, and in what will remain as (If we are to survive and prosper) "Sugar dadddy League".

[shrek]

Today we only have 2 or 3 clubs without sugar daddies.

So maybe Hudge is a bit miffed that he possibly can't sustain his place as an SD in what has become, and in what will remain as (If we are to survive and prosper) "Sugar dadddy League".

I'm always dubious of the "Sugar Daddy" tag, with exception of David Hughes at London who I'm sure read put in £1.5 million a year to keep the Broncos going (feel free to correct that if wrong!) whoelse would you consider to be a sugar daddy? I don't just mean high profile owners but those actually ploughing money into clubs and how much does one have to plough to fall into the sugar daddy category?

Its a term that gets bandied about alot but never quantified.

Plus does it need to be the way? Are Bradford, for example, struggling financially because they don't have a sugar daddy or because someone somewhere decided to stack it high and sell it cheap on the season ticket front whilst also assembling a squad that reportadly is costing the full salary cap yet isn't even assured a place in the play-offs let alone in with a chance of winning the Grand Final?

Other business models to the "sugar daddy" do exist, I have a soft spot for Yeovil Town, who batting well above there weight in the lower mid-table reaches of Footballs League 1 (Division 3 in old money!) and they've just posted a profit of 21k for the last year (with no income from players sales giving a false impression) and expect to do so this year. It is possible to be prudent running a sport club, just few owners seem to be willing to try it and few fans who's club haven't been in crisis would probably except it! Perhaps we just get what we deserve!

[markleeds]

Hill KR would be the first to go if I controlled the game, along with Cas and Wakefield. I would then replace them with either a merged Calder team or Toulouse. If the game is bankrupt lets cut the fat as any business would do. 12 teams sharing the same pot, then there would be plenty of money for the top clubs to run on,

[Rob]

Since many rugby clubs cannot be trusted with their finances, perhaps the annual sky payments to clubs should be spent on their behalf by the RFL.

The RFL are aware of each player's contract - and could calculate the tax due etc and withhold such amounts for direct payments to the taxman.

Remaining monies could be paid directly to players and then the contracts are topped up by the clubs.

This way,

a) the taxman ALWAYS gets paid - and vastly reduces the prospect of clubs entering administration
the clubs' debts would always be smaller and crisis like the current one would be overcome more easily
c) the players always get paid at least a proportion of their wages - even when crisis like these occurs - which reduces the severity of the situation and hopefully allows the club to limp along until a solution is worked out.

I suppose the the downside is that the annual Sky payment would not be enough to pay the tax and even a reasonable proportion of the player's wage bill.

[The Parksider]

I'm always dubious of the "Sugar Daddy" tag, with exception of David Hughes at London who I'm sure read put in £1.5 million a year to keep the Broncos going (feel free to correct that if wrong!) whoelse would you consider to be a sugar daddy? I don't just mean high profile owners but those actually ploughing money into clubs and how much does one have to plough to fall into the sugar daddy category?

Plus does it need to be the way? Are Bradford, for example, struggling financially because they don't have a sugar daddy or because someone somewhere decided to stack it high and sell it cheap on the season ticket front whilst also assembling a squad that reportadly is costing the full salary cap yet isn't even assured a place in the play-offs let alone in with a chance of winning the Grand Final?

Our sugar daddies are restricted by the salary cap from spending that much. At the odd time I understand a big transfer fee or two has gone through, But I don't see the daddies as big spenders, just as people who make up the shortfalls on the business and provide cashflow where needed. I think its clear who has someone that does that and its clear who does not have someone that does that.

In terms of it needing to be that way I'd say for an even competition yes. Making up shortfalls enables the lower clubs like HKR Salford, or even London on a good day, be able to beat the top dogs. It also makes sure that the League operates at the highest level it can to keep the predatory Union at bay.London therefore have the biggest SD input and Leeds no real SD input at all.

I'm always interested at what level clubs are operating at, at what level are their finances, what is the shortfall and who is making or not making that up.

For Bradford nobody makes up the operating shortfall and they do spend full cap yes, but the debt is attributable to the Harris saga and image rights, so these historic debts are not part of the current business plan which seemingly is fairly sound. No need to drop the player spend AFAIK.

Dropping player spends can only see results drop (Cas?) and crowds drop so I can't see where the Bulls can be criticised today, but there was bad business in the past over Harris and poor business on Image rights albeit I bet some sugar daddies will end up paying their image right tax bills off out of their own pocket!!!!

[GezH]

Link to story...

The lengths he will go to to soften the blow for his missus when she discovers Neil spent their savings on Morgan's designer shoe collection, and making up the alleged shortfall of £2k a week that the club needs to stay afloat.

Morgan's shoe collection must be something to behold, I met him at Beverley Races one day, and above everything I was most struck by his flashy brogues
This leak seems very deliberate to me, as a wake up RFL message. Not great because we all know the national media will always pick up on a negative story like this. As Bedford Roughyed picks up on, it's a bit rich coming from a man who signed show pony Willie Mason.

[shrek]

I think its clear who has someone that does that and its clear who does not have someone that does that.

I'm not clear at all, lets see some names of clubs and individuals I say Parky, its a regular beat you drum, which owners and how much?

For Bradford nobody makes up the operating shortfall and they do spend full cap yes, but the debt is attributable to the Harris saga and image rights, so these historic debts are not part of the current business plan which seemingly is fairly sound. No need to drop the player spend AFAIK.

Dropping player spends can only see results drop (Cas?) and crowds drop so I can't see where the Bulls can be criticised today, but there was bad business in the past over Harris and poor business on Image rights albeit I bet some sugar daddies will end up paying their image right tax bills off out of their own pocket!!!!

There's spending for spending sake and there value for money. Strikes me some clubs are spending up to the cap in the mistaken believe it makes them competitive. If the full cap spend of Bradford isn't achieving the same value for money as say the full cap spend of Warrington, Leeds or Wigan to name but three can you really believe there's no need for one to drop there player spend in an attempt to gain some value for money? I've yet to talk to a single Bradford fan who thought going into this season they were in with a shout of winning Super League, a decent cup run and making the play-offs were all I heard, hardly worth bankrupting yourself for in a league with no relegation.

[Chronicler of Chiswick]

RL's always been on the verge of bankrupcy, I seem to remember reading that the deciding factor to go for Murdoch's SL concept was that almost all the then top division clubs were in such serious financial trouble that they were technically trading illegally! Methinks that Mr. Hudgell wants a reduction in SL clubs to increase the Sky money for HKR in particular.

[CANETMAN]

Morgan's shoe collection must be something to behold, I met him at Beverley Races one day, and above everything I was most struck by his flashy brogues
This leak seems very deliberate to me, as a wake up RFL message. Not great because we all know the national media will always pick up on a negative story like this. As Bedford Roughyed picks up on, it's a bit rich coming from a man who signed show pony Willie Mason.

I think that you are correct the leak is a planned one,Hudgell though is right when is says the game is bankrupt however the expansion argument is wrong i think that the RFL have done a fantastic job with expansion of the game at the lower tiers outside of the heartlands.

One final thing 8 Million total losses i would say that is on the low side i know of one club who are at least 3 million in debt and its not the usual ones stated on this forum.

After the Bulls what,s the betting on 2/3 more clubs going under within the next 12 months i think (But maybe wrong) that Castleford/Salford must be close to the edge and god knows how the Catalans survive.

Sad days but maybe a wake up call

Edited by CANETMAN, 04 April 2012 - 09:27 AM.