[url=http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2018-06-29/keighley-cougars-bosses-reveal-cash-strapped-rugby-league-side-came-close-to-folding45k needed to finish season[/url

Keighley have come close to going bust, offered restructuring payment plan to players and staff, and apparently only have £34.23p in the bank!

Two players already moved on elsewhere.[i

"We are releasing this statement to inform all involved with the Keighley Cougars that we recently came within hours of going out of existence. The reason behind this is our now former Chairman, Gary Fawcett, is currently reluctant to sell his shares in the club thus blocking any proposed takeover of Keighley Cougars and causing the club financial hardship. As of the 29th June 2018 after paying players contract payments, the club bank balance currently stands at a sum of £34.23. This means as an estimate, in order to see out the 2018 season we would be looking at investment within the region of £45,000. This can come as a direct result of investors wanting to invest in the club."
...
The Rugby Football League have now made it clear to clubs such as ourselves, Barrow and Whitehaven that there is no longer a pot of money available to save these community clubs and although they will support with the advice and professional administration that they are looking for a return on investment for all clubs in the professional game. As a club we need to bear in mind that from 2021 that the Super League will be taking over Rugby League and the proposal is that there will be 20/24 clubs forming a Super League and a Super League 2 with those not involved being moved to the National Conference League as an amateur club". [/i


Following on from Barrows announcement and whitehavens ongoing problems, and with future funding in jeopardy what is future for semi pro RL? I suspect we'll end up in the medium term at only two leagues with one SL and one semi pro, but with the semi pro missing some historic names.

Don't wish it on any fans, even Keighley, genuinely hope they find a solution.

The statement from Keighley is a bit worrying about Super league taking over from 2021. Is the RFL treading water till this happens or is it they couldn't give a flying fart.

It's all very sad, to be honest. Let's hope the ex-chairman thinks more about the club and does the right thing. I hope it all turns out OK, it's clubs like the Cougars that are the mainstay of the sport, not the fancy Dans in SL.

Surely that statement which I find too similar to barrows to be coincidence, is a deliberate agreed strategy for lower level clubs to make statements about how close to the brink they are / have been. Or am I reading too much into it.

I wondered that PP

When I first read the Keighley statement I actually wondered if it was a windup - so similar was it to the Barrow statement which had come out just a few hours earlier.

Incidentally, the statement makes reference to how their 600 crowds are 7% of the local population of around 90,000. Well, when I was doing my GCE Maths all those years ago, 600 was actually 0.7% of 90,000. If that's an indication of Keighley's ability to crunch the numbers, it's probably not a surprise that they've run out of money!

Pretty sure all the lower league clubs had a meeting at Odsal over the last couple of days as well. Hmmmm

Aaah now it all makes sense.

Arguably two of our best players have left the club.
Due to not been happy about the new offer put to them.
Think some of you are reading way to much into this.
The club is short is short of money and have to cut cloth.
Something you should be aware of.

Too many Keighley fans (and at least one who works at the club) have taken great delight in Bradford's troubles over the last few years, regardless of how upsetting it was to fans who had no blame in what was happening. Which is why I find I don't really give much of a toss if the shoe is indeed now on the other foot. Not that I think it is nearly as bad as it's being made out, I tend to agree that this is a strategy by some clubs.

Even when you've got people saying they hope your club is ok, people like you still want to make the little jabs like your last line. So if your own club ends up in deep, I'd suggest maybe Karma has found it's way to BD20.

That tickled me

Yeah if only we'd have sold/released Vainikolo, Hape, Fielden etc instead of forcing them to stay on...oh wait.....

Actually I am not going to be abusive....

I see it as one of two things (either way probably not reading too much into it)

1) The game really is dying on it's knees (likely)
2) They are playing brinkmanship to point out how SL is trying to grab all the cash and let them die?

I agree the timing is poor after the big Odsal Pow-wow but there is never a good time to say 'We're about to go out of existence unless you can get us 45-60k'

It’s a shame for those Keighley fans that didn’t react with glee when we went through similar problems. I think there are some.

In all seriousness if I was a Keighley/Whitehaven/Barrow fan, I would be wanting some answers from those in charge as I'm not sure how you mess up your budgets so badly as to leave a £45k+ shortfall. In our case, the answer was that our man in charge was a lying s*!tbag. I hope for these clubs that their troubles aren't from a similar source.

Agreed it's very sad for both of them.