Salford financial issues(again…)

[The Masked Poster]

Let's wish Salford and their humble supporters on here all the best. If it says things are definitely happening, then it must be true. 

[Charlie]

4 hours ago, sweaty craiq said:

Hope so pal, I heard council bail out??

You heard wrong 

[The 4 of Us]

8 hours ago, LeytherRob said:

 

8 hours ago, LeytherRob said:

 

It’s been confirmed a bid has been placed, we don’t know who by or what’s involved yet, or the timeline for completion.

This bloke once “placed a bid” for Man Utd. Look how that worked out! 

Edited January 23 by The 4 of Us

[DemonUK]

8 hours ago, LeytherRob said:

 

It’s been confirmed a bid has been placed, we don’t know who by or what’s involved yet, or the timeline for completion.

We have had several completion dates and they keep on coming, last Saturday, Tuesday just gone and the latest day mentioned is tomorrow (Friday) ...... and the next one will be? Who knows.  How much does an alleged consortium of Australian businessmen really know about Salford, their crowds etc. Please excuse me for having majpr doubts on all this.  If its true then great, if not then there are serious questions to answer.  At the moment they have managed to delay this for two to three weeks with very little info coming out due to a 'NDA'.  Have the RFL just announced what they have been told by the club or do they have proof? Season starts shortly, how long will the RFLs approval of the new owners take to complete?

[Big Red Keev]

51 minutes ago, DemonUK said:

We have had several completion dates and they keep on coming, last Saturday, Tuesday just gone and the latest day mentioned is tomorrow (Friday) ...... and the next one will be? Who knows.  How much does an alleged consortium of Australian businessmen really know about Salford, their crowds etc. Please excuse me for having majpr doubts on all this.  If its true then great, if not then there are serious questions to answer.  At the moment they have managed to delay this for two to three weeks with very little info coming out due to a 'NDA'.  Have the RFL just announced what they have been told by the club or do they have proof? Season starts shortly, how long will the RFLs approval of the new owners take to complete?

I would imagine that the Timescale for any approval from the RFL re this proposed takeover, will be driven by however long it would take their "Preferred" clubs to cherry pick our most valuable players.

This obviously then ensures a season of struggle, coz y'know "That will teach us not to have a millionaire backer underwriting our losses year on year". Thus making our inevitable relegation and ultimate oblivion fully justifiable, with the added bonus of making at least a third of this forum positively tumescent with glee.

Focus can then be shifted to picking on those smaller clubs with the relatively poorest sugar daddy owners, thus fast tracking the ultimate end game of an 8 team League that all play each other 18 times each every season, with each club owned by the 8 richest Kings of Europe, clubbing together to pay off the generational Debt owed to IMG, for that one sheet they sent us 2 years ago with the phrase "you're doin it wrong" written on it........

Or possibly a couple of week who knows.

Edited January 23 by Big Red Keev
grammar

[LeeF]

36 minutes ago, DemonUK said:

We have had several completion dates and they keep on coming, last Saturday, Tuesday just gone and the latest day mentioned is tomorrow (Friday) ...... and the next one will be? Who knows.  How much does an alleged consortium of Australian businessmen really know about Salford, their crowds etc. Please excuse me for having majpr doubts on all this.  If its true then great, if not then there are serious questions to answer.  At the moment they have managed to delay this for two to three weeks with very little info coming out due to a 'NDA'.  Have the RFL just announced what they have been told by the club or do they have proof? Season starts shortly, how long will the RFLs approval of the new owners take to complete?

I wouldn’t worry about the last bit of your last sentence. The RFL probably won’t. 

[Forever Trinity]

Good luck to Salford but this looks like a very recent offer of a takeover, there will not be an overnight solution with all the processes to go through whilst in the background there is the monthly salary and bills heading up so things should be clear pretty quickly which was it's going

[Toby Chopra]

25 minutes ago, Big Red Keev said:

I would imagine that the Timescale for any approval from the RFL re this proposed takeover, will be driven by however long it would take their "Preferred" clubs to cherry pick our most valuable players.

This obviously then ensures a season of struggle, coz y'know "That will teach us not to have a millionaire backer underwriting our losses year on year". Thus making our inevitable relegation and ultimate oblivion fully justifiable, with the added bonus of making at least a third of this forum positively tumescent with glee.

Focus can then be shifted to picking on those smaller clubs with the relatively poorest sugar daddy owners, thus fast tracking the ultimate end game of an 8 team League that all play each other 18 times each every season, with each club owned by the 8 richest Kings of Europe, clubbing together to pay off the generational Debt owed to IMG, for that one sheet they sent us 2 years ago with the phrase "you're doin it wrong" written on it........

Or possibly a couple of week who knows.

Er...you have had a wealthy backer underwriting your losses year on year. The council.

I hope Salford get what they need to stabilise and push on in SL, but they are definitely not the victim here.

The image and functioning of the competition as a whole is the most important issue at stake here, and any club that cannot hold up their commitments to that goal should rightfully be under scrutiny.

[JohnM]

In one sense, SRD are authors of their own misfortune. In trying to assure fans etc that the future is secure and bright, they are making a rod for their own back, extending uncertainty and giving ammunition for the haters They are allowing rumour, conjecture and mis-indormation to take root.

Transparency is enviable of course, but not when it comes to matters of extreme commercial sensitivity like this. Far better in my view for the RFL, SRD and SCC to work this out  away from public gaze, until they have something agreed.

Edited January 23 by JohnM

[The Masked Poster]

4 minutes ago, JohnM said:

In one sense, SRD are authors of their own misfortune. In trying to assure fans etc that the future is secure and bright, they are making a rod for their own back, extending uncertainty and giving ammunition for the haters They are allowing rumour, conjecture and mis-indormation to take root.

Transparency is enviable of course, but not when it comes to matters of extreme commercial sensitivity like this. Far better in my view for the RFL, SRD and SCC to work this out  away from public gaze, until they have something agreed.

And what exactly constitutes 'a hater'? Somebody a bit sceptical about numerous rumours and takeovers that never materialise? I bet nobody hates Salford, they maybe want to see an end to this damaging circus though. 

Salford taking the pee does not make critics haters. 

[RP London]

18 hours ago, İzmir Rugby League said:

well someone asked ChatGPT for an image didnt they  

[RP London]

21 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I feel as if I am being slow today, as I have read 2 comments that seem at odds with one another. 

Here is my scenario: 

- I want to buy Salford and want them to be debt free and in Super League

- I make sure they tell IMG what they need to hear to make sure I get a place

- I am then happy for that club to flounder and die: ideally, they get enough cash to tide them over, then they can die quickly and I can start a new Salford, with a shiny clean balance sheet

- I may then be safely in SL in the following year, as the new approach to finance has a marginal impact on me at best

- once this is wrapped up I can drive round the creditors left with nothing shouting “Unlucky you massive losers!” 

Someone said that they would be relegated because they would lose a grade whereas someone else said that they would lose a proportion of a small number… 

Am I alone in wondering whether, if this is the case, the game has collectively lost its senses? 

to answer the last question, no more so than it ever had them in the past. This could have happened in any year and the exact same thing would have occurred.

Personally I would like to see the stiffer penalty introduced rather than the slightly weaker halving of one pillar's points that seems to be the situation now. As a business owner that has been stung by this type of action I would give all businesses stiffer punishments for wiping creditor debt out (or make sure new business are responsible for it, but then there will always be loopholes) but the law isn't like that and we cannot run against the law of the land. What we can do is have rules of participation that hold us to a higher level and that's what I would like, but its not where we are and I am sure that is driven, as always, by the clubs themselves. 

I think your scenario gives more credit to an ability to control these sorts of situations than is the reality but this could equally happen in May to make sure that all the ###### is covered by the time of the gradings even though the whole thing is still a mess and is still abusing creditors. With a single deadline moment in time there is always an ability to time it right/rig systems. That is the same in any set up and cannot easily be avoided due to the nature of deadlines (be that P&R deadlines, tax year end, transfer deadlines [having funds to make transfers] or a grading deadline). 

So, yes, they can fiddle around, but then that can happen at any time and due to the law there is not much you can do about it and clever people get around any rule you put in their way. What we can do is punish in participation and IMHO this tweak has made that much weaker and whoever (not sure if its IMG or RL commercial now) tweaked it has made a poor choice. 

(and before anyone says I'm a Salford hater, I am not and would say it about anyone, a strong Manchester club is important and I hope this works for them)

[Worzel]

2 hours ago, The 4 of Us said:

This bloke once “placed a bid” for Man Utd. Look how that worked out! 

Probably would've worked out better than the Glazers or INEOS though to be fair...!!

 

[Worzel]

1 hour ago, Big Red Keev said:

I would imagine that the Timescale for any approval from the RFL re this proposed takeover, will be driven by however long it would take their "Preferred" clubs to cherry pick our most valuable players.

This obviously then ensures a season of struggle, coz y'know "That will teach us not to have a millionaire backer underwriting our losses year on year". Thus making our inevitable relegation and ultimate oblivion fully justifiable, with the added bonus of making at least a third of this forum positively tumescent with glee.

Focus can then be shifted to picking on those smaller clubs with the relatively poorest sugar daddy owners, thus fast tracking the ultimate end game of an 8 team League that all play each other 18 times each every season, with each club owned by the 8 richest Kings of Europe, clubbing together to pay off the generational Debt owed to IMG, for that one sheet they sent us 2 years ago with the phrase "you're doin it wrong" written on it........

Or possibly a couple of week who knows.

Good grief, what a load of paranoid twaddle. Start taking some responsibility for your own actions.

If other clubs have wealthy backers, and spend money those backers are prepared to spend, that's a good thing for the game. Spending money you don't have, causing a crisis for the sport (or the impression of one), and then sulking because you don't have a wealthy backer even though YOU KNEW THAT when you spent the money is not a good thing. 

Salford have had multiple millions from the council over the years, so you really are not hard done by in comparison to many others. There are plenty of clubs in the Championship who'd like to be in Super League, if they had a wealthy backer. I'd like to be a multi-millionnaire myself, buy a giant mansion and drive a Bugati. But I'm not just going to buy that stuff anyway and then give other people a guilt trip when the bailiffs come knocking. 

 

 

[The 4 of Us]

6 minutes ago, Worzel said:

Probably would've worked out better than the Glazers or INEOS though to be fair...!!

 

Well, there is that! 

[JohnM]

1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:

And what exactly constitutes 'a hater'? Somebody a bit sceptical about numerous rumours and takeovers that never materialise? I bet nobody hates Salford, they maybe want to see an end to this damaging circus though. 

Salford taking the pee does not make critics haters. 

What makes you think this was aimed at you?  In my view, the "damaging circus" as you represent it would have been far better played  out in private  between the parties, than in the full public gaze. as I wrote, SRD, RFL, SCC should not have engaged in public dicourse in the way they have. This error has, again in my view, led to an expectation that every single detail should be held up to public scrutiny at each and every opportunity. They have indeed provided ammunition for the haters. 

[LeytherRob]

2 hours ago, Big Red Keev said:

I would imagine that the Timescale for any approval from the RFL re this proposed takeover, will be driven by however long it would take their "Preferred" clubs to cherry pick our most valuable players.

This obviously then ensures a season of struggle, coz y'know "That will teach us not to have a millionaire backer underwriting our losses year on year". Thus making our inevitable relegation and ultimate oblivion fully justifiable, with the added bonus of making at least a third of this forum positively tumescent with glee.

Focus can then be shifted to picking on those smaller clubs with the relatively poorest sugar daddy owners, thus fast tracking the ultimate end game of an 8 team League that all play each other 18 times each every season, with each club owned by the 8 richest Kings of Europe, clubbing together to pay off the generational Debt owed to IMG, for that one sheet they sent us 2 years ago with the phrase "you're doin it wrong" written on it........

Or possibly a couple of week who knows.

If all that was true, they would have pulled the plug back when Salford went cap in hand for half a million quid back in October wouldn't they? They could have said no which would have forced SRD into administration and taken any players they wanted for nothing.

Let's be clear here, Paul King and the board have gambled the future of the club (and his own house it appears) repeatedly in the last couple of years on an ambition they couldn't afford. Even if SRD do get saved now by a consortium (which I hope they do), it absolutely does not validate PK's reckless handling of the clubs' finances in my opinion.

 

[Dave T]

30 minutes ago, LeytherRob said:

If all that was true, they would have pulled the plug back when Salford went cap in hand for half a million quid back in October wouldn't they? They could have said no which would have forced SRD into administration and taken any players they wanted for nothing.

Let's be clear here, Paul King and the board have gambled the future of the club (and his own house it appears) repeatedly in the last couple of years on an ambition they couldn't afford. Even if SRD do get saved now by a consortium (which I hope they do), it absolutely does not validate PK's reckless handling of the clubs' finances in my opinion.

 

Putting aside whether we feel that they have behaved poorly - the level of revenue that Salford have should pretty much rule them out of being an SL club if we're honest. Income of £2.5m-3m when around half of that was through central funding suggests you just shouldn't even be there. Maybe there does need to be a measure around revenue generated, because if they are only able to raise £1m themselves across a whole year, that should be a huge red flag. I suspect similar goes for Huddersfield tbh. 

[The Masked Poster]

51 minutes ago, JohnM said:

What makes you think this was aimed at you?  In my view, the "damaging circus" as you represent it would have been far better played  out in private  between the parties, than in the full public gaze. as I wrote, SRD, RFL, SCC should not have engaged in public dicourse in the way they have. This error has, again in my view, led to an expectation that every single detail should be held up to public scrutiny at each and every opportunity. They have indeed provided ammunition for the haters. 

I didn't think for one second it was aimed at me. I just don't understand how you can argue that Salford should have done this or that to quiten the haters. They have pretty much brought all the criticism on themselves - mostly from people who wished them well.

[gingerjon]

4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Putting aside whether we feel that they have behaved poorly - the level of revenue that Salford have should pretty much rule them out of being an SL club if we're honest. Income of £2.5m-3m when around half of that was through central funding suggests you just shouldn't even be there. Maybe there does need to be a measure around revenue generated, because if they are only able to raise £1m themselves across a whole year, that should be a huge red flag. I suspect similar goes for Huddersfield tbh. 

Then we come back to whether anyone in a position to replace them is exceeding those numbers.

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Then we come back to whether anyone in a position to replace them is exceeding those numbers.

We may need to face into that answer being no. 

It does appear to be a bizarrely low number though. I can't find everyone's incomes, but Cas reported c£6m around 7 years ago (I suspect it's dropped a fair bit now). I'd be surprised if Hudds had a decent level of income, but everyone else is likely to be substantially ahead of Salford. 

[Harry Stottle]

6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Then we come back to whether anyone in a position to replace them is exceeding those numbers.

Should the question not be would any of those replacing them could improve their standing with SL funding and supposedly improved attendances and matchday turnover?

[Dave T]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Should the question not be would any of those replacing them could improve their standing with SL funding and supposedly improved attendances and matchday turnover?

Well, yeah, i think that absolutely is the question. We've seen what Salford can generate, can others deliver substantially more? 

Leigh showed they could. Wakey too. London probably not in their current state, but you'd be surprised if Toulouse and Bradford couldn't. Obviously the other side, costs can't be ignored, but as blunt measure income is a decent indicator to start with.

[RP London]

10 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Should the question not be would any of those replacing them could improve their standing with SL funding and supposedly improved attendances and matchday turnover?

without pulling this round in to the IMG debate and forgetting whether you think the gradings are doing this or not but.... 

Thats sort of what it was supposed to look at was the potential for the next cab off the rank to be better than the one your letting fall.. if the next club can be in a good position (and that is all stuff/guff about the social media, catchment, pitch, yes big screen etc) to make the most of the promotion and the potential then we will see that the "new system" having the merits people are hoping it would. I am not sure in the past that clubs have been in the best position to exploit the new exposure when they have been promoted before (some have, of course, but the exception doesn't prove the rule).

if we can get the other leagues to be ready to exploit the promotions then the game will be in a really good place. At the moment its replacing like with like really.

Edited January 23 by RP London

[Exiled Wiganer]

23 minutes ago, RP London said:

without pulling this round in to the IMG debate and forgetting whether you think the gradings are doing this or not but.... 

Thats sort of what it was supposed to look at was the potential for the next cab off the rank to be better than the one your letting fall.. if the next club can be in a good position (and that is all stuff/guff about the social media, catchment, pitch, yes big screen etc) to make the most of the promotion and the potential then we will see that the "new system" having the merits people are hoping it would. I am not sure in the past that clubs have been in the best position to exploit the new exposure when they have been promoted before (some have, of course, but the exception doesn't prove the rule).

if we can get the other leagues to be ready to exploit the promotions then the game will be in a really good place. At the moment its replacing like with like really.

Thanks for taking the time to make an informed and informative response to my previous hypothetical gaming of the system scenario. Tied in with that is the point that bothers me most around this - how was their imminent demise not sufficient to allow Toulouse to take their place? Nothing peculiar or unexpected has happened. They didn’t have a major backer or  major sponsor pull out. All that happened was that their cash ran out, because more was being spent than was coming in. How on earth was that not picked up, and their place given to Toulouse?

I have assessed many proposals in my working life, and there is always an ability for the assessors to flag up game breakers, which allow/require you to ensure the outcome isn’t nonsensical - even if the assessors felt constrained by the point scoring system, there must have been room for them to say something like “they score highly enough across the board, but unless a white knight comes over the horizon won’t be able to field a team”. Which would surely have got people’s attentions. I hope someone somewhere with the power to sort this out gets a grip.