Quote ="The Horses Mouth"Just want to throw my two cents worth in as a Widnes fan.
I thought licensing was the right way to go, I thought we as a club were gradually building, bringing through our own players, and slowly catching up with the big clubs.
We had been, in my opinion, harshly treated twice by the RFL, firstly missing out on the original SL to clubs such as Workington and Oldham, when I thought we had a lot more to offer, and again when we were overlooked for the Crusaders. Much as I would have loved for them to succeed and spread the game at the top level, it felt at the time as though the RFL/Sky were being bullied by their owner into including them.
All this pales into insignificance when you look at how we are being currently treated.
Our previous custodians, Steve O'Connor, his brother Brian and our fabulous CEO James Rule have slowly drained the club of all funds over the last few years, to the extent where at the time of our entry into admin we had around £750 in the bank.
Looking at our playing squads over the last few years it's blatantly obvious that they weren't overspending on players, we've been awful for the best part of three years, the money was just going on salaries for themselves.
Our current problems have come about from all the season ticket money raised and the percentage of parachute payment received disappearing before the season got going. On the back of this we have had the rest of the parachute money withheld as well as £70k of funding for the academy, which is the only decent thing to have come out of out time in SL and, without which, we wouldn't be fielding the majority of this years side.
I understand we need to be punished but having the points deduction, which will cost us money for next year due to a lower finishing position, and then the other monies withheld feels like a triple whammy.
It's a horrible time to be a Vikings fan, we are constantly putting our hands in our pockets to help try and maintain our club, while the people who put us in to this position seem to have got away scot free, and the powers that be seem quit happy to watch us die a slow painful death.'"
Of course a Widnes fan would say licensing worked, you got promoted from 5th in the final season with having a team that was nowhere near the standard of the league leaders at the time.
