Salford financial issues(again…)

[M j M]

1 hour ago, Agbrigg said:

Agreed, but there is no evidence to suggest a credible buyer actually exists. For instance Hull and Wakefield have recently been bought by new owners and the identity of the buyers were known prior to the final deal agreement. If the mysterious buyers of Salford actually existed, I find it hard to believe their identity would not have been leaked by now.

The club and bidders are under no obligation to tell anyone other than people directly involved (incl the RFL) anything. Every takeover I've worked on has been strictly confidential until the deal is signed, I don't know why this should be any different.

[Agbrigg]

1 minute ago, M j M said:

The club and bidders are under no obligation to tell anyone other than people directly involved (incl the RFL) anything. Every takeover I've worked on has been strictly confidential until the deal is signed, I don't know why this should be any different.

Well I will say it again, last I was aware buyers of clubs had to satisfy the RFL they were fit and proper. This may have changed, but if not, then they must reveal their identity at the very least.

[M j M]

2 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Well I will say it again, last I was aware buyers of clubs had to satisfy the RFL they were fit and proper. This may have changed, but if not, then they must reveal their identity at the very least.

Sure, to the RFL not necessarily to the general public.

[Charlie]

16 minutes ago, RP London said:

I do agree that I would like to see the punishments/sale of players being enforced, but you cannot sell if you dont have a buyer so are clubs just not offering? and we really dont want them just terminating players surely.. 

you also can’t force Salford to sell, they can impose a lower cap which has been done but the timescale could be anything 

[RP London]

2 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Well I will say it again, last I was aware buyers of clubs had to satisfy the RFL they were fit and proper. This may have changed, but if not, then they must reveal their identity at the very least.

To the RFL.. who would, no doubt, be under an NDA which can have quite punitive restrictions to them

[RP London]

Just now, Charlie said:

you also can’t force Salford to sell, they can impose a lower cap which has been done but the timescale could be anything 

true, we dont know when they have to be there or what the punishment is for not getting there. Also if someone is interested in buying that may have an impact.

[Agbrigg]

Just now, RP London said:

To the RFL.. who would, no doubt, be under an NDA which can have quite punitive restrictions to them

Yes but once things are in the the knowledge of the RFL it is shortly public knowledge. Matt Shaw can verify that

[Charlie]

1 minute ago, RP London said:

To the RFL.. who would, no doubt, be under an NDA which can have quite punitive restrictions to them

I feel like people are really not getting this part. 

[Charlie]

1 minute ago, RP London said:

true, we dont know when they have to be there or what the punishment is for not getting there. Also if someone is interested in buying that may have an impact.

Believe this is why we’ve seen no movement yet, the rfl have seen the bid and seem happy to allow more time whatever that looks like 

[dboy]

I don't think it's a case of the RFL allowing more time. SRD have been instructed to sell, SRD have ignored that in the hope of getting a takeover deal.

If the deal doesn't happen, the RFL will not be doing anything further to help SRD, and SRD will go into administration.

It's a dangerous game SRD are playing - it may pay off, it may not.

[RP London]

28 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Yes but once things are in the the knowledge of the RFL it is shortly public knowledge. Matt Shaw can verify that

Not if the NDA is correctly punitive and the RFL are taking it seriously (good lawyers and deep pockets potentially). As much as people think no news means there isnt a buyer maybe it just shows that the buyer is very serious and has very good lawyers. 

A proper NDA would see no leaks.

[Martyn Sadler]

20 minutes ago, dboy said:

I don't think it's a case of the RFL allowing more time. SRD have been instructed to sell, SRD have ignored that in the hope of getting a takeover deal.

If the deal doesn't happen, the RFL will not be doing anything further to help SRD, and SRD will go into administration.

It's a dangerous game SRD are playing - it may pay off, it may not.

The RFL can't instruct a club to sell any of its players. Only the club itself has that power.

What the RFL can do, however, is insist on a reduced salary cap for a club, which in this case has been set at £1.2 million.

The RFL is in possession of all the Salford player contracts and it will not allow Salford to register a squad whose total value goes over £1.2 million.

What could potentially happen (and this is only my surmising) is that Salford could register players up to that value for their Challenge Cup game against Midlands Hurricanes on February 8/9 while retaining those players excluded from that list until the new owners finally emerge, so that when they do take final control the squad hasn't been decimated and those players initially excluded could be added back to the salary cap.

 

[dboy]

They did say they should sell players and reduce the wage bill.

They can't force them to.

[Agbrigg]

11 minutes ago, RP London said:

Not if the NDA is correctly punitive and the RFL are taking it seriously (good lawyers and deep pockets potentially). As much as people think no news means there isnt a buyer maybe it just shows that the buyer is very serious and has very good lawyers. 

A proper NDA would see no leaks.

That's your opinion and you can't provide any facts to prove it is correct.

You are entitled to your opinion but personally it's totally different to mine.

So far I have not seen one thread of evidence to say a credible buyer exists.

[RP London]

2 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

That's your opinion and you can't provide any facts to prove it is correct.

You are entitled to your opinion but personally it's totally different to mine.

So far I have not seen one thread of evidence to say a credible buyer exists.

You also cannot provide any facts to prove you are correct either, if either of us could then this would no longer be a discussion, so its a slightly weird thing to point out, the very nature of a discussion like this is becuase there is no actual proof either way. 

My opinion is based on dealing with sales of business in the past (and currently) and NDAs on new business for my  entire working life.. yes I acknowledge, as I always have, that SRD may be pulling a fast one but equally the fact there is no news does not, ipso facto, mean there is nothing happening as people seem to want to think. 

[Charlie]

22 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The RFL can't instruct a club to sell any of its players. Only the club itself has that power.

What the RFL can do, however, is insist on a reduced salary cap for a club, which in this case has been set at £1.2 million.

The RFL is in possession of all the Salford player contracts and it will not allow Salford to register a squad whose total value goes over £1.2 million.

What could potentially happen (and this is only my surmising) is that Salford could register players up to that value for their Challenge Cup game against Midlands Hurricanes on February 8/9 while retaining those players excluded from that list until the new owners finally emerge, so that when they do take final control the squad hasn't been decimated and those players initially excluded could be added back to the salary cap.

 

Would they not of had to be registered to play against saints? Grated it was a friendly

[Charlie]

12 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

That's your opinion and you can't provide any facts to prove it is correct.

You are entitled to your opinion but personally it's totally different to mine.

So far I have not seen one thread of evidence to say a credible buyer exists.

Tbf you don’t need evidence obviously the rfl are happy with what they have seen or they wouldn’t of told other clubs 

[Barley Mow]

36 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The RFL can't instruct a club to sell any of its players. Only the club itself has that power.

What the RFL can do, however, is insist on a reduced salary cap for a club, which in this case has been set at £1.2 million.

The RFL is in possession of all the Salford player contracts and it will not allow Salford to register a squad whose total value goes over £1.2 million.

What could potentially happen (and this is only my surmising) is that Salford could register players up to that value for their Challenge Cup game against Midlands Hurricanes on February 8/9 while retaining those players excluded from that list until the new owners finally emerge, so that when they do take final control the squad hasn't been decimated and those players initially excluded could be added back to the salary cap.

 

In that scenario, what is the position of the unregistered players?

Would they be free agents, able to sign for other clubs/on the Salford payroll but not as playing staff/unemployed and turning up to training voluntarily?

They will all have playing contracts, which Salford would have to stick to unless they released/sold them.

Edited January 28 by Barley Mow

[Wakey Til I Die]

12 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Would they not of had to be registered to play against saints? Grated it was a friendly

Only for insurance purposes, the salary cap doesn't come into force until the competitive games start. In theory they could all have been classed as trialists for the friendly game. I should imagine the scenario that Martyn Sadler mentions is close to what will happen.

[Agbrigg]

16 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Tbf you don’t need evidence obviously the rfl are happy with what they have seen or they wouldn’t of told other clubs 

Again, just a presumption

[Martyn Sadler]

23 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Would they not of had to be registered to play against saints? Grated it was a friendly

No, pre-season games don't count for this purpose.

[Martyn Sadler]

17 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

In that scenario, what is the position of the unregistered players?

Would they be free agents, able to sign for other clubs/on the Salford payroll but not as playing staff/unemployed and turning up to training voluntarily?

They will all have playing contracts, which Salford would have to stick to unless they released/sold them.

They would still be Salford employees unless and until they moved to another club.

But they wouldn't be able to play until the club's salary cap was raised.

[DemonUK]

4 minutes ago, Agbrigg said:

Again, just a presumption

There are lots of assumptions. Have the RFL actually seen the bid, or are they taking Salford (Paul King) at their word.  i doubt any Fit and Proper test has been done unless there is a cast iron agreement to buy the SRDs.  No idea, I like one or two others think there is no buyer but again an assumption.  Maybe they are just trying to get to the CC tie to Cup Tie all their players

[Barley Mow]

10 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:

They would still be Salford employees unless and until they moved to another club.

But they wouldn't be able to play until the club's salary cap was raised.

Okay.

You don't think that Salford might be in breach of contract if they employed people as players, but then didn't register them to play?

It also wouldn't achieve the RFL's objective in requiring Salford to reduce outgoings - they would all still be payed, just not as players counting towards the cap. The RFL might as well row back on the reduction of the cap.

Edited January 28 by Barley Mow
Typo

[Dave T]

I'm not sure why there is such anger towards Salford, and almost this blood-thirsty attitude of wanting to punish them now (or even months ago) for struggling financially. 

I'm not particularly a fan of the way they have done business, but they are an RL club trying to survive, I with them the best and if that means holding off on kicking them while they are down, then so be it.

One thing that doesn't stack up for me is why do people think that King is dragging his feet? He knows that they haven't got the money to pay the bills for the year, hence asking for the loan. It's not really in his interests to keep this going - he knows the game is up really in terms of his ownership and he's said as such that his role now is making sure the club survives and doesn't go under on his watch. Sure there is always the risk of dodgy dealing and sinister motives, but often the truth is that it's very often just people trying to do their best and not always getting it right.

I think the constant nit-picking and demanding daily updates is unnecessary - they are still a functioning club who are struggling and had to borrow some money to pay the bills, they haven't gone bust (yet), I think the calls for punishments etc are a little misguided personally. But, each to their own.