SALFORD RED DEVILS chief executive Chris Irwin has confirmed that star centre Tim Lafai has returned home to Australia.
First reported by League Express last week, Irwin confirmed the veteran had exited the Red Devils for family reasons in an interview on BBC 5 Live.
“The club was operating way above its costs, so that’s why we’ve seen the departures of Marc Sneyd, Brad Singleton and Tim Lafai going home,” Irwin told BBC 5 Live.
“We’ve had to drop our overheads significantly, and we may need to continue to do that because of the situation that we’re in but as soon as we have some liquidity in our account, we can move out of the sanctions, and really kick on.”
Irwin explained the exit of Lafai further, but stated that the Red Devils are hopeful of doing “big things” in 2025.
“That’s the stark reality of it, whilst we don’t want to lose any players, and we certainly didn’t want to lose the three that we had there.
“Tim’s reasons were family reasons, they’re in Australia and they’re settled with no chance of coming back so he was missing his family. As a family man myself, I get that.
“Losing Singleton this week and Sneyd last week is a big blow for us. Paul Rowley has built a wonderful group of players together, a really competitive squad that we’re hoping to do big things with this year.
“We’ve still got a Challenge Cup and I’m optimistic and I’m confident that we’ll get through this.”
Meanwhile, centre Nene Macdonald continues to be linked with a move away, whilst Chris Atkin and Ethan Ryan have also been rumoured to be leaving.