www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/32087422 Koukash's family wants to move to Australia. Koukash is very serious about buying the Gold Coast Titans. Koukash will eventually sell his ownership of Salford back to "the community!" (is that the 2,000 hard core fans who are so flush with money?). Unless someone puts a bus or tram service from central Manchester into Barton's A. J. Bell Stadium, the long term future is dire for Salford.

www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/32087422 Koukash's family wants to move to Australia. Koukash is very serious about buying the Gold Coast Titans. Koukash will eventually sell his ownership of Salford back to "the community!" (is that the 2,000 hard core fans who are so flush with money?). Unless someone puts a bus or tram service from central Manchester into Barton's A. J. Bell Stadium, the long term future is dire for Salford.

[iHe added: "My family are very keen on living in Australia but that does not mean I will have to water down my interest in Salford.
"I'm not going to own Salford forever, and as soon as the club can stand on its own feet, I would like to hand the ownership to the community."[/i


Not a good sign. Salford are a decade away from standing on their own 2 feet. That's not having a go at them it's simply where they're at right now.

It doesn't seem, from that quote, as if Koukash is willing to wait that long.

I may well be wrong but I reckon he'll be gone from Salford in 3 or 4 years.

Great Britain Titans anyone?

Unless the crowds can rise to 5,000 average the club is doomed.

The club is doomed and the RFL should be pumping money into Toulouse, using the full names of all people they correspond with or about.

Salford are going, it's just a case of when. It wouldn't surprise me if it happened the next time they suffer an embarrassing defeat.

I don't know why he is making a fuss about him losing 20k a home game, I thought the guy was a billionaire.

He probably spends that fuelling up his yacht

And the guy has hardly bought real quality players to make a proper go at honours.

I'm sure he is passionate about RL but he doesn't half moan.

He has realised that he cant play fantasty RL over here and he wants out... i dont think this comes as a surprise... he rushed into buying a club and got it all wrong.

Now he is looking at the NRL and he sees an opportunity to 'progress his RL ownership career'.

2/3 years tops over here.

what yacht?

Never seen one moored on t'cut beside the stadium.

So he is going to go in the future. So's everyone else.
Thanks for the last two years and the ooprtunity to watch Salford. Only Bradford fans will know as well the sickening feeling when you think you do not have a club.
Note to JC: your Toulouse fan base is not going to be boosted by upset Salfordians.

Wow there are some really slow people about.
I remember Marwan saying exactly the same thing the day he had his first meeting with the fans after taking over the club.
As hillbilly said if he walks tonight I will thank him for the extra couple of years I've had watching Rugby League.
I do wonder if part of Marwans frustration is the apathy of the Salford public and the lack of ambition in the sport to grow the game.
Plus the absolute fear of change some supporter's seem to have.

I think that sums it up quite well.

It must be massively frustrating to have the drive, ambition and cash to back his ideas, only to be thwarted by the restrictions that exist within the game.
Mind you, those constraints are not new and in one respect, it's quite comforting that you cant just buy success, it takes time.

However, IF, he is prepared to walk away, without success, it would be very brave of the Aussies to let him take control of the Titans.
Although the salary cap is significantly higher in Australia, many of the same type of constraints exist there, which may leave Dr K just
as frustrated if he were to be allowed to take them on ?

The talent roster at Gold Coast is far, far superior to that of Salford. Dr Marwan will be much happier with the performance of his Titans than with his Red Devils. He and his family can live happily ever after in the paradise of eastern Australia.

Salford to become feeder club for the Titans?

Unfortunately there is no talent in Salford to feed to the Titans.

In any case Titans willl have Daly Cherry-Evans next year, along with former Catalans captain Gregory Bird, and the fastest man in rugby league, James Roberts. Add to that star studded group PNG star and winger David Mead, full back Joshua Hoffman, and forwards Nathaniel Miles, David Taylor and Lukas Douglas, and you have a team capable of reaching great heights. All the while Dr Marwan Koukash's family lulls about on the sunny golden sands of the Gold Coast.

The only feeding that will be going on is of the giant prawns and succulent oysters being imbibed by the Koukashes at their favourite seaside restaurants.

JC your take on things is as always unique! Your saviour of RL in the Northern Hemisphere (Catalans) could only manage a draw at home to the rubbish(according to you) that is Salford! Marwan has stated a few times that other business interests will keep him living in the UK for at least another 2 years. As for the Koukash's living it up in sunny Australia, they had amble opportunity to move to Dubai ( spend every NY there) which has even better restaurants and where most off his business interests lie, yet for 30 years haven't.

I think the 2 things we can say safely are: he isn't going to own Salford for ever and he isn't moving to France!

I'll add another: DCE or no DCE, the Titans won't be worrying the big boys in the NRL any time soon.

Projected leaving Date for Marwan is approx 5pm on Sat 18th April !

Strange how so many people seem to want Salford to fail, not sure why.
As many have said, if it wasn't for Marwan we wouldn't be here today, if he walks away tomorrow we'd thank him for his time and start again.
Not much point worrying about something we have no control over. Just enjoy it while it lasts! You never know, good cup run, attendances start to rise, he may even decide to stay on?

I think it's because people fear he's flogging a very dead horse in a very vocal way.

He's made a bad choice of club and seems keen to blame everyone but himself for any issues encountered along the way.

Here's hoping Salford find their feet somehow and start pulling in the crowd needed to be a proper sl club but I have my doubts.

And why is the horse so dead?
I don't think there is a magic bullet, the crowds wont just come, and I don't think we'll ever see average 10k crowds. But 6k is realistic, if we can pull some wins together, get the marketing/pricing right, get a good feel around the club again. People under estimate how damaging the move to aj bell was, off the back of the false dawn "we will definitely make the 8", the stagnant mcrae era, followed by a really poor start at the new stadium which was a million miles away from what we were originally promised. All to easy for people to get in to the habit of not coming to the game. Add in to the equation another 2 false dawns since then, its going to take more than a couple of wins to get people to travel further than they were before to watch Salford.

But, if we do get a few things right, we do have a decent fan base. The future isn't as bleak as everyone is making out.

There is certainly potential for Salford to improve and certainly a regular top 6/ top 8 finish is possible in a relatively short time scale.
Also, there is nothing wrong with ambition.
Where Dr K has fallen down a little is, by making bold statements about how quickly success will come.
The other factor which will have put many fans off, from returning to watch, is the utter shambles of the match day parking which, when
new fans turn up (especially if they have young children), they just don't want a 1hour + wait, just to get out of the car park.

When we (Wakefield) played Salford last season, there was a bit of a buzz about the place and there were plenty of new fans and youngsters
that had come along to witness the revolution and IIRC a crowd of over 7000.

The stadium is good for viewing etc. and the only other hassle was the queue for tickets before you could enter the ground.

As many have already said, it's great to have a wealthy backer and if he can manage expectations and remains committed to the Salford
cause, the future looks bright.

Ignore the knockers, many of whom are just envious and enjoy your RL !

I don't think its a bad choice of club. I think his problem is that he has expected/demanded/implied/promised so much as soon as he took over. I think people took umbrage at the fact he reckon he could just splash a few quid and surpass clubs that have spend years building success (or indeed mediocrity)

Build from the bottom - get a solid squad, rather than a few washed up stars, get a decent home record (which they've actually got, now), get your strength and conditioning sorted so that you can 100% out of the players you have, build links with the community, ramp up your youth development and THEN sign Sonny Bill Williams and declare your abitions as a contender. IMO

I sell equipment to takeaways and was at a customers new venture. They've been open two weeks, going okay, but a little quiet, but they've held back on advertising and flyers until they've been open for a month. Why? Because if they got a flood of customer int heir first week and couldn't handle it, the bad service provided would damage chances of future trade. Better to get a bit of experience under their belt to make sure they're getting everything right, then getting the masses in.

Many may accuse Jean Capdouze of having a hidden agenda behind his posts but I'm afraid that he just isn't intelligent enough to keep it hidden properly. If he tries harder he might just make it to the level of a forum troll

I think you're right, but that's just Koukash and he aint gonna change! He's used to success and expects it, and now. There is the perfect example to follow just down the road at Warrington, am sure Simon Moran is a very amiable fellow, very successful self made man too. I'm sure he would give Marwan great advise on how to build a club not just a team.

But as I say I don't think Marwan will change so we are where we are, and where we are is a lot better than where we would be without him.

I like him. I like that he's jumped in with both feet. I like that he puts his money where his mouth is. I like that he is passionate about RL. I like that fact that he comes up with ambitious and crazy ideas to expand the game, even if 99% of them aren't feasible. At least he's having a go.

In a city such as Manchester ,with two very successful soccer clubs ,it is always going to be difficult for Salford to compete for fans.The Manchester people that I meet ,if they talk about sport ,it is always soccer ,they have little interest in anything else.