Looks like it was top 4 or bust this season for them.

Matau'tia, signed for Castleford
Thomposn As just joined wire
Another 2 about to be announced else where with more to follow.


This is why teams should not over spend to chase sl

It may be that they are in trouble, but it may also be worthwhile getting them off their books now if they were gonna be moving on at the end of the season anyway. No point keeping high payed players for the 8s.

Disastrous start to the season, turned it round after we thrashed them and have been third best team in the league since, obviously after us and the Wolfies.

To big a squad to start with and a lot of big wage packets, hopefully they don’t make the top 4, but if London lose to Barra then they’ll be struggling in the middle 8’s.

Statement from DB just released on leigh website

Quote "Leigh Centurions owner Derek Beaumont has issued the following statement:

It was with a heavy heart and tear in my eye that the realisation sunk in that we would not make the Qualifiers. I have said publicly on numerous occasion and privately to the group that my position as owner of the Club would become untenable should that happen.

The Club will receive circa £200k in 2019 from £1.25m this year and circa £1.7m in 2017 and that is a drop too far to sustain the Club in its current form. To that end I must act in the best interests of the Club’s ability to survive going forward and in the short term to fulfil this season’s fixtures and also to reduce its commitments to make it more attractive to any party that may express an interest in taking it forward.

This week is deadline week and therefore an ideal opportunity for players to be able to secure their futures elsewhere and at the same time reduce the Club’s obligations. I can confirm there will be a large number of exits and that may bring some opportunities for others but that will be ongoing this week right up until deadline.

I am committed to ensuring the Club reaches the end of the season and hope during that time a new investor or group of investors can be attracted to take the Club forward. I will be making a more detailed statement at the beginning of next week and until then will not be in a position to comment further. I apologise to our loyal fans and sponsors for this failing which ultimately has to rest with me."

Hope we never trust a shyster like him.A wealthy man who signed off those contracts should pay the shortfall Before he fecks off.Thankfully the due dilligence of Town fans thwarted Abbott.

Very sad reading. DB has always had the best interest of Leigh at heart. Maybe he should have got rid of some big wages when they came back to the Championship but hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I hope someone comes in, would hate to see Leigh (or any British Club) go to the wall. SL clubs want to take full control and more or all of the money and the RFL are hell bent on promoting stupid ideas such as Toronto playing in the Uk league ( and to some extent CAtalan and Tolouse) while lower leasgues clubs are struggling or being wound up.
I hope I’m not speaking out of turn when I say the the Fax fans hope to see Leigh next season.

Thank you , I may still pay a visit to the Shay for the 8's, depending on the Leigh fixtures, nowt changes for me, I'm still the Clown from Leigh, a Leyther through and through, tough times ahead yes, but we have been there before and will survive.Who takes over?Maybe another Leyther.

The strange thing is DB has announced this before Leigh are 100% out of top four contention.

But the transfer deadline is on Friday-percentage judgement call.

Aye, happen.

Bottom line is that the responsibility should rest with dB . He should have made a decision far quicker ref Niel Jukes who managed to pee off and sell the better players and keep average.

Agree 100%, I said Jukesy should have gone after the Barrow away defeat, which was a joke , we threw away a decent lead, and the after were comfortable against Toulouse winning by around 16 points,and LOST that game , Jukesy was out of his depth but Derek stayed loyal and we lost 5 of the first 6 games.

Derek paid the players inflated contracts, gave them 2 year contracts at that, the local lads were shown the door, the rest is History.We don't possess a kicking game whatsoever, and our defence is terrible.

Charlie, Alan and the rest of the Leythers, it’s very upsetting to see your club back in this position as you guys don’t deserve it. Derek has tried his best, possibly to much at times as his money has been given to players who don’t deserve to wear the Leigh shirt. The extra £500k should have been spent more wisely, 4 year deal to Acton, pure stupidity for me.
Good luck in the next few weeks (as long as it’s not at our expense) and hopefully you’ll have a club to follow next season. You just need a Barra to do you a favour.

very sad for the Leigh club - hope they get sorted for next season now - I just hope he doesn't get involved in another club with his mate FlashKash

It's often forgotten that Jukes actually went after round 4, and KP lost his first two games. Damage had been done in the off season sadly.

Koukas doesn't walk from debts does he ?

Sad times for Leigh. The backer is jumping ship so to speak. It happens unfortunately. Maybe his timing could of been better. They have adopted the same approach as Bradford Bulls and banking on going straight back up. The high profile players struggled early on and you never really recovered from slow start.
In my opinion the troubles started when Paul Rowley (love him or hate him) left for Toronto. He was a far better coach than Jukes and keeping faith in Jukes was your downfall.
Charlie clown will have to dig into his pockets.

Chazzerboy, my pockets are deep , but my arms are short,lol,in the past before Derek B, I raised a fair few quid for the Club, running Poker Nights,and I had a Boxing Night for the Club along with Andy Gregory.
I'm a bit old now to fundraiser, my health isn't great.You are right about Jukesy though, I never rated him, though I liked Rowley and thought Riddy and Brierley were great,Derek got shut of them though, and went for 2nd rate Aussies and foreigners.
Whatever happens we will survive, I will watch em wherever we play,good luck to Fax in the 8's.

Not much "happen" about it.

The logical thing would be for the deadline to fall in the interregnum but it always falls on the Friday of Game 23 weeken.

Not sure of the thinking behind that. Especially as the deadline could fall before or after Game 23, depending on what day you play.

same as everything else concerning rugby league, entirely reactive rather than proactive

Very sad to see and this is what would have happened to Fax last season (to a lesser degree) had we failed to reach the qualifiers, but less urgency to offload earlier because our players obviously not tied in to higher paid long term full time contracts.

But this is another example of how too reliant the clubs are on SKY funding, and the drop is horrendous for Leigh. Championship clubs shouldn't really be full time on such low crowds anyway. Should really all be part time and have the old style top 5 play off where the GF winner gets promoted and the runner up takes part in the "million pound game".

I know the timing of the Leigh player offload is down to the transfer deadline, which is unfortunate. There's is still an outside chance of Toulouse, London or Fax losing, only one of them need to lose for Leigh to sneak in. Unlikely I know, but still possible. But now I imagine the reduction in Leigh player power will be compounded by a dejected remaining squad who could now themselves be vulnerable to a "shock" home defeat against Sheffield who haven't been too bad of late (the usual jet lagged visit to Toronto being an exception). That would be a killer for them if indeed one of us lot messes up.

They are in trouble because they don’t have a sustainable plan other than to be dependent on one mans pocket. So this is as much a failure of the whole Board and senior team as it was at Fax when we over spent.

I have no idea what our financial position is like, but I suspect we will be very tight as we always are. I also think if it wasn’t for Mark Moore ensuring we got it right this year and some generous personal sponsors we wouldn’t be in for a top four shout.

Hopefully when Moore goes at the end of the year the new Board will not go nuts.

Whist I don't doubt that Leigh have financial problems now, this also smack s a little bit of a rallying call to Dewsbury, Barrow and Rochdale. Basically prove him wrong.

I very much doubt that anything Leigh say or do will make a blind bit of difference to how Dewsbury, Barrow and Rochdale play this weekend.