Salford Red Devils have promised Sean Long will be paid any missing wages following his work as a coaching consultant for the club.
The Red Devils announced they had “reluctantly” released Long from his contract earlier this month following a request from the former St Helens and Great Britain scrum-half.
He has since taken up a backroom position at Saints, the First Utility Super League champions, under their new head coach Keiron Cunningham, Long’s former team-mate.
It has now been reported that Long was not paid his October salary by Salford.
The club have confirmed a payment was stopped but explained that there was a lot of confusion surrounding Long’s status after he asked for a release.
Long was away working with the Samoa national side during the Four Nations tournament when he made his request and the club had difficulty contacting him to discuss the matter.
Red Devils chief executive Martin Vickers said: “Because of his lack of communication there has been some confusion.
“The club will pay him what he is due up until when he asked for his release, which was in the middle of October. There is no issue with that.
“We had lots of difficulties contacting Sean while he was away with the Samoa team. We contacted him on several occasions to say we would rather he didn’t leave the club.
“We got to a point where because there was no contact, reluctantly we had to accept his request for an immediate release.
“With all the confusion around his position, because he wasn’t in dialogue with us, we just had no alternative but to suspend his arrangements until he got back in contact with us.
“The first contact we had, since he got back, was on Sunday this week.”
The Rugby Football League is aware of the situation but Vickers said the governing body had not expressed any concerns.
He said: “The RFL has asked questions about these things but not raised any issues with me. They have been in dialogue just asking for clarification.”
St Helens said Long was unavailable for comment.
It has also been claimed two other former members of Salford’s staff, a player in Liam Foran and Paul Highton, who was football and player welfare manager, also have grievances over delayed payments.
Vickers said: “Both of those people are subject to agreements with the club so we are unable to make any comment.”
