On the subject of finances I see Marc Green is the subject of a bankruptcy order https://m.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3160586

On the subject of finances I see Marc Green is the subject of a bankruptcy order https://m.thegazette.co.uk/notice/3160586

Poor Widnes. An all too familiar story. I hope they get sorted.

And good old RFL - docking 12 points. Always on hand to kick struggling clubs when they are down.

Do we all remember the RFL appeared to need to keep us in Championship to ensure the bash could go ahead.a couple of years back? I wonder what will happen if if Widnes can’t survive now the season is up and running?

That all happened after we'd been liquidated and 'reborn' so to speak.
We've a bit to go yet before Widnes are in a similar position.

I watched the Sky match last night. Did not hear one mention of the Widnes situation . Nothing outside the top tier seems to matter to them. Perhaps the Vikings are the first major casualty of the new structure. And perhaps there are a few existing SL clubs who might go the same way if they were to be relegated this season.
Last week’s Observer had a superb full page article on the rebirth of the Cougars. A better advert about the community values of Rugby League than anything produced by the RL authorities with some great quotes .
And the incentive for any prospective new owners of Widnes and the actual new owners of Keighley? A 12 point deduction.
I despair

TBF I think people talked about relegating us as soon as we hit admin and starting losing players. If I recall the major issue was the time of the problem, the fixtures were set and summer bash was lined up, exactly the same problem looming if Widnes can’t resolve the issue

Yeah definitely a timing thing, ours was in the off season which is why I think there was a lot of talk of simply relegating us once liquidation became probable.
This time with Widnes the season and fixtures are already underway so it's far messier to deal with.
Not sure what happens if they can't fulfill their fixtures, what a mess.

Sky spent a good 15 mins talking about it on Thursday nights pre game.

And if the clubs didnt get 12 points deducted every singlemone of us would be moaning how they were treated differently to us and how we wpuld have been shafted. U might not agree with it but there has to be rules in place.

The part that really irks me as that these crooks who run the clubs in to the ground get to walk away scot free. Criminal charges should be brought againt them.

Been reading this Topic and it is quite heart warming that you are very supportive of Widnes. It sometimes when your team suffers that you realize more, as other fans are just thinking which players to take. Well as a Widnes fan I have gone through this too often and starting to lose interest in the game, but I wish Bradford well, and I have a real soft spot for Bradford. All the best for the season.

Big push from "Viqi" now to raise money to pay the bills and save the club. That has an uneasy echo of Peter Hood and his needing £500k for the club to survive, and then the money just disappearing. I have seen though that they've said the money is going to be held independently so that the same sort of thing can't happen (hopefully a lesson learned from the Hood situation). One assumes the administrators will then be in charge of what the money is to be used for. If previous admins at Odsal are anything to go by, I bet paying the administrators massive fees is probably quite high on that list.

I really really hope Widnes turn this around and do get saved as I've always had a soft spot for that club for some reason. But I can't see this being the answer at all. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

The best thing for them to do would be to hold off on the fundraising until new owners are in, as much as they might not want to hear that.
Any funds raised now to pay bills is simply going to be swallowed up by the whole admin process.

Agree 100% and for that reason i wont put a penny in to any collection for them.
I wish Widnes all the best but as we found out mony raised by the fans just disappears.
I know fans feel compelled to help in anyway they can but pouring.money away in to a big black hole wont help.
Wait till some new owners come in then raise funds to help them keep hold of some of the players they have.

There have been so many clubs in the.last 5 years enter admin but they are all still here today. There is always someone to the rescue. Any money raised would be better given to a new owner rather than pay the administrators bills.

Agree entirely. No fundraising by fans will make the difference between coming out of admin or folding into liquidation, so they need to keep the cash and hope. it would come in very handy for new management. It will make no difference before then to the outcome.

I should just add that IMHO our 500k raised DID make a difference as it meant we finished the season, which would certainly not have happened. Whether knowing what we now know that was a good thing or a bad thing, is debatable but it did keep the wolf from the door at the time.

Too much ineffective one up drives that made very little ground. After the break we changed tack for a while and shifted the ball quickly along the line to our backs which worked but then fell back into the one up drives. Very poor reffing, Pickersgill deffo looked to have grounded the ball from where I was and will someone please spend some time with Chisholm on his tackling technique, it's terrible.

Apologies, posted above on wrong board.

Saying on Twitter widnes have been saved good news

I'm not really understanding what's happened in terms of the players/staff. Were they all made redundant? And now the newco is having to offer new employment contracts to them all?
If so does that mean they didn't do a tupe? Employment law isn't my strong point haha.

From social media it appears all off-field staff were made redundant and at least 4 players have been let go (who are all injured at the moment) they have been saved from liquidation, but I still fear they have a long hard road ahead. They had a small squad as it was, losing 4, and likely more, will really hurt them as the season drags on. Hope they avoid the fate we had of watching our kids get beat up to inevitably be relegated.

How can they pick and choose which players to retain/keep though? Just letting go the injured guys is brutal.

Big earners though in Tangata, Inu and Albert.

Because when any company makes redundancies, they do it based on a number of factors. Usually a scoring system. In reality, they usually weight that scoring system so the people they want rid of happen to come bottom of it. In some companies, they may weight things like being off sick, skills in certain areas etc. In Widnes' case, they could just put a high weighting on "injured or not" and "cost to the business". Then those who are high earners and injured will be the ones lowest in the scoring and made redundant. A crude way of putting it, but it'll be along those lines.
When companies make redundancies, they don't make absolutely everyone redundant, they cut a certain amount. That's what Widnes' administrators have effectively done.

amazing how quickly RFL managed to approve the takeover. Every time we went through we had weeks of RFL ooming and aahing over approving the bidders. In Widnes case seems to have just been a formality. Suspect in our case they were more bothered about securing a paying tenant for their lease than any rugby related reasons.

I'll admit I'm unclear on exactly how this takeover has worked in terms of new/existing companies. Widnes have had a twelve point deduction so you have to assume that the debts have not been paid. So is it a newco situation we're looking at?
If it is then surely all of the staff have either tuped across or they have all had to renegotiate new playing contracts under the new company?

From what I've read, I believe the redundancies came by the administrators before the takeover, in order to cut costs. Then the remaining staff will have been TUPEd across one assumes. It's either that or those three players didn't want to be TUPEd and decided to leave instead (ala Kopczak). I'm only taking a guestimate on what I've read though, I'm not privy to the workings of the club. I certainly don't believe they're negotiating new contracts though, the remaining players are on their previous ones by the looks of things.

Or these Widnes people are known to be fairly upstanding members of the community with no background of insolvency or being involved with questionable people. Unlike some of our previous takeovers. Allegedly.