Halifax have become the latest club to opt-out of the RFL’s Autumn Invitational competition.
The Fax board confirmed that they would not be participating after considering all the factors involved with a return to action.
They follow Rochdale in deciding to opt-out.
A club statement read: “Whilst the end of season tournament is a commendable gesture by the RFL, our club will not be taking part for the following reasons:
“Our players, who are part time, have not played for four months, have no suitable training facilities or time to get back up to match fitness. The risk to players picking up injuries (as evidenced in the NRL) is too high for us to consider allowing them to play.
“Financially the Board has worked very hard, alongside its stakeholders, to manage its way through this Pandemic.
“The current situation sees the club having a chance to survive 2020 with help from those stakeholders. However, the prohibitive costs of testing, un-furloughing players, match day costs, playing either behind closed doors or restricted crowd numbers, simply puts all that hard work at risk.
“The club’s longer term survival and growth is paramount and the Board feel that this has to take priority, therefore we will not be entering this end of season competition.”
It continued: “Consequently, the Club’s Commercial Director, Steve Lambert, will now start contacting our sponsors next week to start opening discussions about 2020 reclaim options and 2021 sponsorship opportunities.
“Likewise all our season ticket holders will also be sent a letter / e-mail next week with regard to the same topic.”
