KEIGHLEY COUGARS owners Ryan O’Neill and Kaue Garcia recently held a fans’ forum and question and answer session in order to issue clarification on a number of topics.
One of those topics centred around player payments with some speculation circulating that the owners had missed player payments – something which O’Neill decided to address at the start of the meeting.
The minutes state: “Ryan stressed that the only issue here was the misunderstanding with some players over the club’s policy to retain a portion of the win bonus, to accumulate into an end-of-season pot, as was the case in the 2022 season.
“The club’s intention from the beginning of the 2022 season, was that this was a permanent policy, however this was not communicated to new contracted players. Once this issue came to light, it was resolved without issue.
“Ryan stressed that the club has never missed players salary payments.
“Ryan expressed his frustration that these false rumours cause the club damage, and that he requests that the person who spreads these false rumours for dramatic affect and to cause disruption should stop doing so.”
On a side note, Garcia and O’Neill also explained the decision to part ways with head coach Rhys Lovegrove.
The minutes state: “The board were not happy with performances in consideration to the on field spend.
“Ryan confirmed it was a very tough call but one he had to make because they are ambitious owners and want to win. This decision was made because we are ambitious and feel where we are now is not good enough.”
