Looking at the MEN article.More loans from the Council if approved matched by the same amount from Peel-total £1.5 mill until next October by which time they hope to have a new investor with fans running the Club.

Rubbish Rubbish Rubbish.Thats 1 more year of the same.Supporter run Club in this scenario won't work.

Article from MEN here:- menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... SS+Feed%29

Article from MEN here:- menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... SS+Feed%29

Just what we need, lets get ourselves into a load more debt!!! I don't hold out much hope for this time next season.

It all depends on how the deal for the current debt is structured. If the current board and JW in particular have agreed to forgo what is owed to them and the "clean slate" is genuinely that, then starting off with £1.5m capital and a guaranteed income from Sky would certainly be capable of seeing us through next season.
The fundamental question then is whether we can find enough willing investors through a supporters trust to keep things going and deliver the improvements we are all desperate for - I'd love to see a business plan and cash flow projections.
I'm afraid that the council statement isn't too helpful - in essence " we've got to keep it going or else we lose what we loaned" - hardly a ringing endorsement.

If a Supporters' Trust is to be involved in the club's future then it's about time people got involved with Forever Reds, ain't it?

I'm not sure there is enough clout for us to be a supporter run Club. We have some passionate fans, sure, but we also have some of the worse fans in SL. All this is a catch 22 situation anyway. If we get the 'clean slate' that tides us over for the next 12 months, investment needs to happen within that time frame, which is not a great deal of time. We're pretty much guaranteed the wooden spoon this coming season due to loss of players and the inability to sign the right amount of new ones. Investment will only come if the team performs well on the pitch which is unlikely to happen due to the reasons stated previously.

If PV and Longy can somehow produce miracles and give us a mid-table team with what they have got there may be a slim chance someone somewhere might put a little money into the Club.

There's a lot of big ifs...

I'd suggest that most genuine Salford fans get to as many games this coming season as I have a feeling that it may be our last as a top flight team.

As Ian Stewart keeps mentioning a supporters trust you wonder why he hasn't made any contact with the existing supporters trust. Unless it's hot air of course.

The question of being a (completely) fans run club is whether the fans could raise the hundreds of thousands of pounds a year needed over and above Sky money to pay rent and salaries for a SL team. I suspect not. Running a part time club out of somewhere like Moor Lane, maybe.

Thats cheap coming from you. You don't even go to games Tony.

yey news!! And Barker didn't even get the day right lol!! well at least we still have a club and are not in administration!We have managed to trim off some of the big earners and aussies so lets use it as a chance to rebuild the squad full of young english talent. And for gods sake don't let any more of the academy lads go , still can't get over the fact we have let walne and marriott go!!

Wrong.

Was there any need, apart from a misplaced sense of smugness, that there was any need to try and have a pop. Nothing in my previous post was nasty to anybody.

You kind of proved my point in why a supporter run Club wouldn't work for us. Sadly.

I don't you can say a supporter run club wouldn't work for Salford because fans don't agree on the internet.

I just can't see a supporter run club working.To be successful Salford needs a major investor no-one is going to invest those sums and let someone else run it for them-its pie in the sky.Supporter led clubs have worked but plenty have failed.You need lots of expertese from the fan base and without do ourselves down do we have a broad and large enough fan base to find those requirements.Football clubs have much bigger catchment areas and more money involved.Sorry a supprter led club is just a no no for me

It was tongue-in-cheek.

I personally just don't think there is enough interest in general. Certainly not enough for any financial aspect to be viable at all. I'd love to be proved wrong. I just don't see it.

You can say the same about clubs run on any ownership model.

I'd wager that many clubs have more/greater skills amongst their fan base than the people who have run/managed many clubs for years. Whether that can be harnessed, and whether enough people would get involved is the bigger issue.

There needs to be some firm proposals, if the council and Peel are sincere about trying to structure things so that a supporters trust could eventually take over then they need to publicise that and start the ball rolling. Clearly a fledgling organization already exists in Forever Reds - I'd expect contact there to happen.
I expect the next council meeting to be an interesting one - Motion No 1 - "In these times of cutbacks and austerity we commit £750,000 to a possibly moribund sporting club" mmmm?

The Club needs cash to fund future losses which are near certain.
The supporters trust,or whatever,is a red herring.
Whoever puts in the cash,if that person exists,can't leave the running to a hotch potch of amateurs,however sincere and well meaning.
It would be akin,with all due respect,to the lunatics running the asylum.
If the interim owners don't find a new benefactor or an entirely different game plan,it pains me to say that I don't know how we can sustain full time professional rugby but the club will,of course,continue to exist in some form.

That really is playing up to stereotypes. RL fans aren't all skill-less plebs. I'll bet that amongst all clubs' supporter bases there are people with senior managerial experience, financial management, marketing, employment law and safety experience. It's whether these people have the time or inclination to get involved.

Completely agree, but more fundamentally is the question of whether a sensible business plan can ever be put in place. Are there any Superleague clubs who exist without constant external funding over and above normal trading and sponsorship deals?

There were some multi skilled lunatics in the asylum,too !
Don't take offence,please,I'm making the wider point that whoever puts the money in needs professional management not a patchwork quilt of varying talents.

like he said



According to some , we've been led by a hotch-potch of amateurs for a number of years already .. who else could have gone over to Aus to look for the next Wayne Bennett , but find the next Sir Les Patterson.

I don't usually panic or totally despair but the piece about the RFL appointing chairman and chief executive,'on their recommendations',is extremely worrying given their involvement in Wrexham and Bradford.
With Tasker and Ferres now at Bradford and Castleford respectively it may very well be Rod Findlay who is next in line.
He was C/E at 2 clubs which were finally liquidated and the guy who brought in Licensing,which included the stadia requirements - or not,depending on which club it may be !
It looks as though his 'risk management' ain't working at one particular place.
[url=http://www.northeasttimes.co.uk/ArticleDetail.aspx?id=2697LINK[/url

Anyone know where the best place is for the purchase of cyanide pills ?

Iain your probably very correct with your assumption.
The problem with running the club through a supporters trust is as you say appointing the correct team to run the club on a day to day basis, setting a budget and financial plan which the "team" sticks to at all costs and of course raise additional funds through lottery etc.
If I was considering operating such a club I'd be looking at memebers, by which it means the fans, paying a memebership fee each year to give the club a regular income over and above RL & gate money in Salfords case say it was to offer a monthly membership of £12 over 12 months and working on your gates being 4000 but with a take up of say 3500 that would generate a net income of say £403200 allowing for any Vat implication. The problem is obviously getting the fans to agree, this could be done using it as a discount on match day fees.
Clearly then you may stand a chance of operating a sucessful club financially wise, but it does put a massive burden on the elected officers as it does become a full time job.

Re-supporter led clubs.I don't dismiss the abilities of any fans lets face it there are multi millionaiire fans of Salford.The problem is that supporter led clubs in this country seem to be ok when they are the lower end of the food chain-I don't see any in the Premier League in football.AFC Wimbledon is a gd example of a really good supporter led club but they are scraping around at the lower end of Div2 in football having risen through the ranks.One of the biggest FC United has hit a plateau as well and their crowds have started to fall.So bearing in mind we are in the top division it seems a non-starter to me.The Club may survive in that form but not at the top table.

Quote ="shandybass"Re-supporter led clubs.I don't dismiss the abilities of any fans lets face it there are multi millionaiire fans of Salford.The problem is that supporter led clubs in this country seem to be ok when they are the lower end of the food chain-I don't see any in the Premier League in football.'" It's not complete ownership, but Swansea City are 20% owned by the fans, and were in a pretty bad way before they got involved. www.swanstrust.co.uk/History.aspx

Quote ="shandybass"Re-supporter led clubs.I don't dismiss the abilities of any fans lets face it there are multi millionaiire fans of Salford.The problem is that supporter led clubs in this country seem to be ok when they are the lower end of the food chain-I don't see any in the Premier League in football.'" It's not complete ownership, but Swansea City are 20% owned by the fans, and were in a pretty bad way before they got involved. www.swanstrust.co.uk/History.aspx