An investigation by BBC Inside Out has found that Super League clubs have a combined debt of around £68.5 million. Sports Finance expert Rob Wilson explained the situation as “There are too many teams generating insufficient turnover and generating too much cumulative debt”. Incredibly, the Rugby Football League’s director of standards and licensing Blake Solly…
Sport England has announced that they have slashed funding to the Rugby Football League due to a failure in reaching participation goals it has agree to with Sport England from 2009-2013. Sport England was to have given the Rugby Football League £29,408,341 during that period. Instead the RFL will now recieve £27,563,684, a drop of…
The financial problems facing Newcastle Knights owner Nathan Tinkler have come back to hit both the Newcastle Knights and Newcastle Jets, with the Australian Tax Office moving to have both clubs wound up. The Sydney Daily Telegraph is reporting that the Hunter Sports Group, which owns the Knights and the Jets, Newcastle’s A League soccer club, have…
The Salford City Reds are currently fighting financial problems after a number of people, including former players, had to fight the club to get money they were owed. In this environment, youngster Joel Moon decided to leave the club and play for the much more financially sound Leeds Rhinos. One that back for this Salford…
The problem a lot of Super League teams are faced with is spending more money than they make. That is the simplistic answer to the financial issues dogging the likes of Salford, Castleford and Hull KR. The salary cap sits at £1.65m. That means that clubs can spend up to that limit on wages and…
It is an issue that fires up a lot of fans and one I think is pretty clear cut. What happens when a clubs finds itself in a perilous financial situation and is fighting for its life. Should a governing body step in and take control of the situation, or should they stand back and let things…
The Bradford Bulls will stay in Super League in 2013 but me “monitored”, what ever that means. Probably would have been handy if they were “monitored” in the lead up to them going into administration, but hey, what do I know! This decision will rub a lot of people up the wrong way but it…
Bradford Bulls prop Craig Kopczak withdrew from the Bulls squad before the clubs final game of the regular season against the Catalan Dragons. The move was an effort to have his contract terminated with the ailing club and it is thought that next season he will link up with the Huddersfield Giants, a move that…
Yesterday the RFL announced that it would be ending its naming rights deal with Stobart that saw them give away one of their biggest assets for stickers on trucks. It is interesting to look at the reaction to the news and the way some people have tried to defend the deal or revise their previous…
The Administrator in charge of the Bradford Bulls has made members of the clubs front office and coaching staff redundant today, including head coach Michael Potter. Assistant coach Francis Cummins is the only member of the coaching staff left to prepare the squad for their next Super League game. What a mess. It is a…
Bradford Bulls fans have woken up to the news this morning that their club could be dead and buried within a fortnight. The Bulls released a statement today pleading with fans to donate £100 each to save the club. They claimed they need to raise around £1,000,000 to survive and £500,000 just to survive through…
The ARL Independent Commission was set up with the goal of being able to stand above self interests and agenda’s and do what is in the best interests of the overall game. In the past, Rugby League administrations have been political beasts. They have had to answer to clubs, who are always out to look…
The Rugby Football League has signed a three year deal with trucking company Stobart. The deal involved Stobart putting large Rugby League themed stickers on 100 of their trucks and involves no money. In exchange for this the Super League competition will carry the Stobart. This is insane! Nothing against Stobart, they’ve done a great…
Today on Twitter I mentioned once again that I believe the Cronulla Sharks should relocate to Brisbane. I point to the way they have struggled over their entire history financially and the way they are squeezed into a small area of Sydney with no room to grown. In Brisbane they would be one of just…
First of all I want to tell British Rugby League fans to stop being so reactionary. What has happened has happened. You can blame this and that, but at the end of the day the real problem is that the foundations that the game in Great Britain is built upon are completely rotten. Until the…
I’ve been saying for some time that Rugby League in Great Britain, and Super League in particular needs fixing. In 1996 Rugby League in Great Britain was given a whole lot of money to help try and form an elite club competition that would provide broadcasters with a nice amount of content they could show…
In a stunning turn of events, the Wrexham Crusaders have withdrawn their license application to the Rugby Football League, meaning they will drop down a division to the Co-Op Championship next season. This decision means that the team that was heavily favored to be axed from the competition next season, the Wakefield Wildcats, have earned…
There is a lot of talk today about the Cronulla Sharks, with some wanting them axed from the competition. The first team I ever remember supporting was the Cronulla Sharks. My first favorite player was a young bloke they called “ET”. My first jersey, as a four year old, was a little Sharks jersey. I’m…
English Rugby League players get no respect. They are under paid and they have very little profile in the media. Because of this, players find it hard to get any sort of decent personal sponsorships, and you know who is to blame for all of this don’t you? Well, take your pick…. The BBC, Soccer,…
The complete financial meltdown of the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats should be the catalyst for a complete overhaul of the way Rugby League in Great Britain is run. The sad news is, it won’t be. By going into administrations before the season kickoff, and then receivership after the first round of the competition, the Wildcats have…
News that the Wakefield Wildcats need £500,000 by the end of January to ensure the survival of the club was confronting, and yet not a shock to Rugby League community. Over the last few years we have seen clubs at every level of the game in such financial peril that many have not survived. Where…
Where there is smoke, there is usually fire. Only 12 months ago, all and sundry would have told you that the Gold Coast Titans were the gold standard of how an NRL team should be set up and run. A brand new stadium was in place. The local community was behind the team. The club…
When I was four years old, the Cronulla Sharks were my favorite team. The reason was because I liked the Sharks logo, it was cool. In fact my first every footy jersey is a tiny little Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks jersey. When I went to primary school a year or so later, my favorite players was a…
There is a Golden Rule in Rugby League that states: If you wanna f*cking it up, leave it to a Pom. So goes every single thing the Poms touch when it comes to Rugby League, it is like they have a national commitment to Rugby League disaster. This time around the dirty, soap dodging whingers…
The Cronulla Sharks made a very tough decision when they decided to move half of their home games to Gosford. The Cronulla Sharks, more than any other team in the NRL, are a club thats very much grounded in its local area. They call its “The Shire”, and for many years the area turned up…
I’ve always said my priorities as a fan lie in this order: The game of Rugby League, My Country, My State, My Club. That order is basically what allows me to have unbiased views on the game. Sure I rant and rave about Penrith every so often, but most of the time I’m being critical…
The reason the Manly Sea Eagles are the best team in the world is because they have all the right people making the right decisions as far as the football team goes. The people with the money left the football brains go out and do their job. They don’t get involved in the football decisions,…
With the announcement that Super League would be moving towards a franchise system and scrapping Promotion and Relegation, we have seen a number of lower grade teams in the UK making a big song and dance about why they deserve to be in the final Super League lineup. Among those were the Widnes Vikings. You’d…
From broken promises to leaked memo’s to over protective board members and fans to a decade of having won nothing…..South Sydney, The Rabbitohs….call them what ever they like, they are a terrible football club. The Bunnies have really shown this year how ingrained failure is at their club. Lets just look at what they have…