SALFORD RED DEVILS expect to be under a reduced salary cap for several more weeks as they wait for further funds to arrive.
Another difficult week for the club has seen star player Marc Sneyd leave for Warrington and several other players, including Tim Lafai, linked with exits.
It comes after players were paid their February wages a week late – and in part thanks to a central funding advance – with the club waiting for more money to arrive from new owners based overseas.
Salford CEO Chris Irwin told BBC Radio Manchester that it will take a while longer to receive enough funds for the RFL to lift the imposed sustainability cap of £1.2m.
He explained: “£1.9m was sent to our account and then bounced back to Australia, which put us back under the sustainability cap.
“In terms of the large funds we’re hoping to come over that will really elevate the club, we’re going to be waiting for those funds a bit longer than we’d hoped for.
“However, March payments, we’ll be fine with that. Then come April, we hope the large funds will come into the club and then we can kick on.
“I think (we’ll be under a reduced cap) for another couple of weeks unfortunately. The RFL need to see liquidity in our bank account so we need the large funds to come over and we need the half a million central distribution (advanced to the club in the off-season) paid back to the RFL.”
Irwin insisted that Salford’s new owners were genuine, and said the current issues were caused by the club being bought earlier than anticipated.
“It’s led by two Australians, Saia (Kailahi) and Curtis (Brown). The large funders are Dario (Berta) and a couple of funders overseas,” he said.
“They want the stadium and they want the land. The idea of them purchasing the club, it was meant to be done at the same time as the stadium.
“Due to the financial situation the club was in, they had to step in probably two months earlier than they wanted to.”