From the VT, thanks Derwent for the timely info!



There you have it and I assume that Derwent's source is official and public record.

Crusaders had a property asset to secure the sums owed against, Wakey have nowt.

Who did, Crusders did you say... I didn't release that the new Ltd company had bought the Racecourse ground!

By the way it is not the issue of the RFL not giving them the money now or previously, just the issue of whether they will bail them out when they have to... by the same token Wakefield are not yet in administration, but they could well be soon.

Not sure I understand your point.



I doubt it as they're not seen as a strategic asset in the same way Crusaders are likely to be.

I have no axe to grind with Wakefield, in fact quite the opposite I hope that they can secure the new ground and look back on this incident as a minor blip in their long history. However if they will not be able to complete the season then they shouldn't be allowed to start it.

Whilst it is in the RFL interest that their clubs operate on a sound business footing, it seems that Wakefield may have been some distance from that for quite some time. I have to ask if they were not (hoping) to move ground, and therefore not (hoping) to receive the £350k downpayment, where would that leave their business plans?

It seems that the Salary Cap, the great white hope for continual financial liquidity of the clubs, isn't quite what we were hoping it to be...

That's one way of looking at it. The other is that if a club cannot operate (well below) a salary cap that hasn't been raised for some time, should they be in SL at all?

If you can't operate at breakeven in SL and you don't have someone willing to fund your losses - there is only really one logical outcome isn't there?

The point is who owns the Racecourse ground, because it is not the company that is a member of the RFL or the previous company that was a member of the RFL! You said Crusaders had a ground but they don't, two people connected with them own a ground... it does make a difference!

Don't forget Wakefield owe the RFL nothing but the Crusaders owe them £700k... you can see why HMRC are so pleased with the RFL for engineering their own preferential creditor status by the back door can't you.

So why did the RFL do that for Crusaders and not for Wakefield, that is the question!

Wakefield's debt is minimal and mainly owed (currently) to the tax-man, Crusaders were £2m in debt and the RFL sanctioned wiping out their debt and letting them carry on in SL! Is it just me that can see the huge double standard here.... if the RFL had not stepped in Crusaders would not have started the 2011 season... simple as!

The people who own the racecourse ground are the same people who own crusaders. They can secure a loan against in the name of the crusaders if they so wish. It wouldnt be at all uncommon.

That's a point I find difficult to understand.

IMO the RFL have to some extent set expectation levels at a number of clubs with their support of Crusaders. Again I don't know the full details of the support they have given to Crusaders (other than the amount) but I do wonder if it was linked to a longer term business plan by Crusaders and a strategic development plan for RFL.

It may be that secretly the RFL are willing to let Wakefield die and thus reduce the number of clubs in a very congested area (where I live by the way) so that they can bring in another club and widen the geographic coverage of SL. This also supports why they wouldn't let Crusaders go.

FWIW I think that the RFL should be more proactive in making sure that the member clubs are capable of fulfilling their obligations financially, but should stop short of bailing any club out of a perilous financial position. The bottom line is that our clubs are still run mainly by Amateur businessmen rather than real professionals, and as long as they continue with their "hobby" we will continue to have this type of problem.

I think your inference that HMRC are chasing down Wakefield as retribution for Crusaders pre-pack is spurious at best.

The bigger problem for Wakefield is that they themselves, as an enterprise, currently lose between £200-£300k a year and their chairman has an IVA. Who funds that loss for next year?

They have had two winding up orders in a year so i can see them getting credit, anywhere, from anyone. So who funds a £200k loss for this year?

Debt if serviceable, is nothing. Cash is King.

Wakefields big problem is that even if they go through a pre-pack like Crusaders they A) still have a payment of a few million due for the ground which would immediately go to the creditors which Im sure the owners dont want to lose. and B) the owners still dont have any money and still wont be moving forward, so they will get no benefit from it other than wiping out a debt you state is minimal.

Oh and the RFL didnt sanction the administration, the clubs voted for it to no longer preclude admission to SL. Im not sure what you perceive as a bailout. But I cant see how insisting that a specific debt is paid by a company that doesnt have the legal obligation to do so can class as a bailout.

It is not Wakefield it is the whole of SL but this current winding up order does relate to image right payments I understand, so it is the first winding-up order for this other than Crusaders. The RFL & Leeds are trying to do a deal with HMRC and they are flat refusing to do any deal and you can't help but think that maybe HMRC would have been more willing to do a class deal similar to RU's if they RFL had not indirectly help see them out of £500k worth of tax!

Wakefield's problem is cash-flow and to be fair it kills many a business in hard times. They don't have much debt (we understand) but HMRC is chasing back-tax (as they are for the whole of SL) and they are in the period of the season with no regular income. I am not condoning Wakefield's position and if the RFL had let this current Welsh folly die, as it would have done otherwise if they had not stepped in, then letting Wakefield do the same would be fine... but they didn't did they!

But the RFL havent. All the RFL have done is follow their rules (which admittedly the clubs have voted to change) and insist that their debts get paid.

The HMRC are doing the same thing they often do in pushing it as far as they can before making a deal, all that will happen with Wakefield is they will say that they challenge it on the same basis Leeds do, there is no reason to expect that HMRC are wanting to pursue two test cases on the same issue simultaneously or that a court will let them. Its a bit of brinksmanship and Wakefields current problems are far more structural than this one off payment.

The RFL would allow Wakefield to do the same as they have done with Crusaders. It just so happens that what happened with Crusaders wouldnt really help Wakefield move forward.

Without commenting on the rights or (perceived) wrongs in this case, am I alone in finding it very sad that despite all the lessons of the, past clubs continue to spend money they haven't got in the hope (promise) that funds will be forthcoming in the future.

Particularly given it's the second time in ten years Wakefield have done the same thing, previously being forced to lay off around a dozen of their playing staff when they got stiffed by Pearman.

That's exactly my point, with largely the same folk involved.
It smacks practically of negligence to me or, if not that then, extreme foolhardiness.

Maybe it's just plain incompetence? It would be interesting to know what background, experience and qualifications the key personnel at Wakefield have, I suspect that it falls way short of what would be required to run a profitable business. If I am right and they key personnel are simply willing amateurs, it comes as no great surprise that they are in the position they are.

Like I said earlier, I hope that they can look back on this whole episode as a blip in their long history, but our game is littered with clubs who were once "great"...

Just found this www.wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/2011 ... questions/ on the Wakey website. These few points wouldn't fill me with confidence to invest [iWhat will my money be spent on? The money will be used to allow the club to continue to trade within its expected cash flow for the foreseeable future. One of the primary purposes for the majority of this money is to settle an outstanding debt with HMRC. Why has the date of 31st of January been set? The HMRC debt needs settling in February. How many shares are currently issued in the company? The current total number of shares in the register are 513,067.[/i With regard to the staff at Belle Vue, isn't the MD Diane Maskill a relative of Ted Richardson? I could be wrong but thought I'd heard that somewhere. Also I didn't know Belle Vue has changed names yet again! It's now the Rapid Solicitors Stadium

Just found this www.wakefieldwildcats.co.uk/2011 ... questions/ on the Wakey website. These few points wouldn't fill me with confidence to invest [iWhat will my money be spent on? The money will be used to allow the club to continue to trade within its expected cash flow for the foreseeable future. One of the primary purposes for the majority of this money is to settle an outstanding debt with HMRC. Why has the date of 31st of January been set? The HMRC debt needs settling in February. How many shares are currently issued in the company? The current total number of shares in the register are 513,067.[/i With regard to the staff at Belle Vue, isn't the MD Diane Maskill a relative of Ted Richardson? I could be wrong but thought I'd heard that somewhere. Also I didn't know Belle Vue has changed names yet again! It's now the Rapid Solicitors Stadium

I think the evidence is piling up against the RFL on this one!

HMRC have done a u-turn on Wakefield's agreed payment plan and they are now demanding full payment. This decision has come after the whole Crusaders pre-pack! Also, someone on VT says that Batley had something similar happen to them recently, again following the Crusaders issues. I understand that Wakefield had, to date, met their payment plan!

I assume Wakefield will challenge the HMRC in court and might have that agreed plan re-instated.

So maybe not retribution but they have thrown away the potential good will by securing their own debt and 'assisting' in getting rid of £500k of tax!

Until Leeds and the RFL issue an update then HMRC are still, I understand refusing to do any deal with the RFL on off-shore image rights and pension payments, never mind a similar class action deal that the RU secured!

It could all be coincidence though or they could be other issues in RL we don't yet know about that are making HMRC nervous. The rumour is we currently owe (in back-tax image rights) HMRC a cool £2m and I suspect that Wigan, St Helens, Warrington and others will not be far behind. It might be this and not Wakefield or Crusaders that are HMRC's longer term concern. It would be easy to see the whole of SL owing between £10m to £20m or even more to HMRC in back-tax!

Finally, I get the vibe that Wakefield fans are now ever more inclined to let the club go into administration and start again with a clean slate, because as well the rumour is they are not short of backers circling waiting to come and get a good deal off the administrator! They would probably stay in SL for this season (with a new backer) and then possibly have to take the drop when the news comes out in July. However, with the Newmarket development ever more likely to happen and the majority of investment coming from others, the developer, Wakefield College, Leeds University they would end up in a paid-for SL standard new stadium by the time of the next licence period and you would have to think that some other clubs not too far from here could lose their place to Wakefield in the future!

Correlation does not imply Causation.

so your argument is that the HMRC have reneged on the agreed payment plan with Wakefield (though we havent yet been told what the payment plan was for, what reasons it was agreed, or why having survived two winding up orders from HMRC, having publicly stated that a 'white knight' (thought to be Rodney Walker) has paid off the tax owed) because of petty jealousy that the RFL insisted a completely separate company to the one which Crusaders have now liquidated (and who owed HMRC) agreed to pay back the former companies debt to the RFL before the RFL would work with them again. And also strangely, the RFL's insistence that the new company pay back a specific debt of the old company which they had no legal obligation to do, constitutes 'assistance'.

I dont think they would have taken it that personally.



Its a bit of brinksmanship, and why not, what have the got to lose? If HMRC dont end up doing a deal a fair bit further down the line, something similar if not identical to RU I will eat my hat.

Wakefields problems run much deeper than that. Crusaders and Wakefield arent in analogous situations. As I said before, Wakefields big problem is they are due a few million from the developers for Belle Vue, they go into administration that will more than their debts off, but be a huge loss to Richardson, this is why he is trying to raise the cash through a share issue than simply writing it off. Crusaders had no tangible assets to be stripped of. Wakefield do.

Wakefield will both start and finish this season, of that i can assure you.

To be fair SmokeyTA I think we are almost starting to sing off the same hymn sheet now as I learn a bit more and I agree with much you have posted.

The reports of HMRC tearing up Wakefield's payment because of Crusaders did come from press reports, but that of course doesn't mean anything either!



I think the more I understand about the situation the more I believe that the RFL made a correct decision to protect a large investment that they had in Crusaders and that makes commercial sense. However, I still think that HMRC have been entrenched by the actions of the RFL and have dug there heals in even more because of this. I suspect that HMRC's attitude is born from the fact that the RFL are not just a commercial entity, but also an official national sporting body. Still, it is pure speculation and maybe I was too vociferous initially without having enough information to make that call.

As for HMRC and Leeds test case then I understand that Leeds case is a strong one because of also owning an RU club and being taxed differently within the same business and of course the issue of demonstrating that the foreign players images in RL are bigger than their RU equivalents in the primary operational market of the company... Leeds!

As for Wakefield the yes, I think they will both and start the season and may even get a SL franchise... if the rumours of several wealthy backers looking to pick up the club from the administrators are true!

As I said on the VT, I present Probiz, Castleford, Halifax and the WCC as exhibit no. 1.

Another Winding Up Petition for Wakefield. Hearing is 2nd February 2011. www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... field.html

Another Winding Up Petition for Wakefield. Hearing is 2nd February 2011. www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague ... field.html