I am very sorry to see the player exodus at Leigh and feel extremely sad for their supporters.

They have a very tidy ground which should be a blue print for teams like my own (Wakefield) and on my visits there I have always been made welcome by Leigh supporters and the ground stewards.

However it seems that balancing the books was not a priority.

I was under the impression (forgive me if I am wrong) that after the problems experienced in the past by my own club and more recently by Bradford, the RFL had insisted that financial due dilligence was to be improved. Indeed at Wakefield, wasn't Kath Hetherington launched into Belle Vue until Michael Carter (CEO) found his feet.

I believe that RFL have failed miserably in this respect as they have the powers to act as internal auditors and advise against overspending.

I for one will not put all the blame on Derek Beaumont. He is passionate about Leigh and used some of his own money, but the RFL must have been aware that his budget was not sustainable and should have insisted that some type of financial director was appointed.

The danger of boom or bust was examplified many years ago by association football's Leeds United. They chased adream, failed to catch it and 20 years later still have not made it back to the Premier League.

I offer my own club as a model of how it should be done.

Within the last 5 years we had to sell our best players and operate on a shoestring for a couple of years. Full credit must be given to the directors Chris Brereton and Michael Carter for doing this.

I hope DB does not walk away and that their may be a local Leyther prepared to invest both time and money to support him.

The Leigh supporters deserve it.

RFL hang your heads in shame.

I sincerely hope that Salford are not heading in the same direction.

Widnes at least seem to be waking up to the fact that their super league place is in danger but please RFL make sure that financial due diligence is scrutinised over there.

Why should the RFL hang its head in shame?

Regards

King James

Perhaps for their part in creating a "cliff edge" for clubs to fall off.
If Leigh had budgeted for finishing outside the top 4 (the point at which their funding drops from $1.2 million to £200k), they wouldn't have a side capable of competing for a play off spot.
Of course, this doesn't just affect Leigh but, all other clubs vying for those prized play off positions.

Did they force Leigh (and any other clubs) to overspend, no.
However, they have created such an uneven situation in The Championship that, it could only be a matter of time before disaster struck and therefore they (The RFL) are complicit in yet another clubs failure.

Non of that is the RFL's fault. Derek Beaumont, for all his passion for Leigh, failed to stabilise the finances at his club and spent his own money chasing a dream. He is now leaving and the club will pay the price. I have been to Leigh many times and it has great potential, but, the club needs to grow their regular crowd numbers, as their current crowd numbers are not big enough for Super League.

Mr Argyle should buy Leigh as feeder team?

Where do you draw the line when it comes to the RFL being involved? After them buying Odsal for the Bulls, I'm not sure. DB's dummy spit ain't down to them though.

What you are saying may be correct.
However, using your measure of crowd numbers, EVERY club outside SL has the same problem.
Does this mean that we should cease to have promotion and relegation ?

The current difficulties, many of which are due to the current 3 x 8 system, which utterly prevents any promoted side from gaining a foundation within SL destabilises half of the SL clubs and around 40% of the Championship Clubs making life extremely difficult, if not impossible to sustain a top Championship side.

Promotion can only be gained with serious long term investment and/or huge amounts of luck and even when all the stars are aligned, hanging on to the coveted prize is equally difficult.

IF we are to continue with promotion and relegation, we have to move to a 1 up 1 down system (either with or without a MPG) or, find a way of levelling the funding between ALL Championship clubs.
There could still be an element of prize money, depending on final standings but, the current imbalance between the top 4 and the rest is just bonkers.

Realistically if funding for all championship clubs is made the same then you reduce the chance that anyone will get promoted to SL under the current system. It’s a proposal that has backing from SL clubs as it increases their security.

Criticising the RFL for imposing a “cliff edge” system is a bit wide of the mark IMO. Clubs voted for the 8s system. It wasn’t imposed. Clubs in the championship also voted for the current financial distribution. It’s up to them to run themselves properly. When the RFL get too involved it can do more harm than good as my own club found out.

One up one down is probably the way things will go from 2021. It should be straight P&R if it is. No MPG since under a level funding arrangement the championship club wouldn’t have a hope against the SL side.

Whatever route you choose there is no way of totally preventing a club from getting into difficulties. If any of the likes of Moran, Davy, Hudgell, McManus etc decide to walk away then those clubs will suddenly find themselves needing to make cuts.

Of course the clubs voted for it.
There was massive pressure to find a way of allowing some form of promotion and relegation and for The Championship clubs, there was at least the chance to gain promotion and for the SL clubs, they could forsake some of their protected status but, in the knowledge that the cards were stacked heavily in their favour.
The 2 issues that really didnt appear to be very well thought out were, the inability of clubs to escape the middle 8's year on year, although we have seen Leeds and Huddersfield have to go through the "qualifiers" and the second issue being the drop in funding for "the big 4", should they fail to qualify, heavily affected by the inclusion of both Toronto and Toulouse in the Championship, which make qualifying far less certain for Fev, Fax, London and Leigh (who, prior to the inclusion of Toronto and Toulouse, were the only realistic challengers for promotion).
Of course Bradford will expect to be battling towards the top end of The Championship next season, therefore, the 4 big clubs, suddenly becomes 6, with the funding only at a reasonable level for 4 of those clubs. So, who will be next to fail ?

His budget was "sustainable" for as long as he was prepared to underwrite it. Leigh are not alone in that regard.

It appears that he is no longer prepared to underwrite the club over the long term.

As it stands, Leigh are not in any form of insolvency procedure. What they are doing this week is precisely what many people are arguing that they should do - cutting their cloth accordingly to reflect their income and make themselves less reliant on the benevolence of an owner. I don't know what you would expect the RFL to do in this situation.

If you want the RFL to start intervening in situations where a club is reliant on an owner, they're going to be employing an awful lot of auditors.

Leigh going bust = The RFLs fault.
Clubs employing ne'er do wells who arent allowed to travel = Torontos fault

I see a pattern emerging here

Regards

King james

I am amazed that the 3x8 format is being blamed for financial difficulties. As it stands a championship club already has to be in a position to beat SL clubs before moving up. Under the old one up one down system you only had to be good enough to beat championship clubs and the outcome, year after year, was that the promoted club took the players of the relegated club, who were already not SL quality, and who again ended up in a relegated team. Personally I would like to see any promoted club being given a license that guarenteed safety in their first year or the new system will be just more of the same. You can already see too many teams preparing not to get relegated and a long summer of dead rubbers.

They voted for it because it gives Championship clubs a chance of promotion but some bigger gates at the end of the season. It also prevents some SL clubs from drifting without any sort of risk.

Who will be next to fail? The club that has no contingency plan obviously. From a championship perspective the key is to approach the top 4 with a long term aim not a or bust attitude. That way missing out won’t mean dramatic changes are needed overnight.

Perhaps we need a parachute payment for clubs that finished in the top 4 that then do not the following year? Perhaps a more gradual distribution of funding is needed so that success is rewarded but failure not penalised so heavily? I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is that many SL clubs are no better run than clubs in the Championship or L1 and they remain their solely while their backers are in place. In some cases there are healthier clubs in L1 and the Championship than in SL. Consequently any system for movement of clubs between L1, Championship and SL should be a majority agreement not something imposed by a minority.

The RFL will happily let millionaires throw money at expansion clubs because it saves them the trouble...even if these millionaires are "fly by night" merchants like the guy at Crusaders and now Del Boy Beaumont......the minute David Hughes passes way or Argyle gets bored, London and Toronto will vanish, but the RFL won't care, because they'll still collect their wages, sky will still pay us a pittance and the fans will still (in fewer and fewer numbers as we die) roll up to games......

People will blame the RFL for anything.

Beaumont is solely to blame if the club has financial problems - in the absence of a viable business he was underwriting/guaranteeing the club's position.

If you want the RFL to micro-manage every club I'm sure you won't object to funding the organisation properly to do so? Another £500k slice of TV money might do the job.