BBC tonight 7 30 Inside Out has its results of an investigation into the finances of clubs & the current viability of rugby league. There is also an article about this on BBC sport rugby league page .

brilliant.... more advertising for our game ........

a full half an hour program devoted to Super league and its clubs being on average THREE Million pounds in debt. its nothing but scaremongering and its just in vogue because of the recent plights of Bradford and Salford.

yes some clubs need to get their house in order, and we were guilty of it in the past, but look at the Premier league table of debt ridden clubs starting with united at 300million arguably they can afford/(manage) it given their revenues, but clubs like Fulham almost 200 million in debt and even more worrying is Everton £45 million in debt with no rich backer to help them out.......

it highlights the shambles that is the RFL...yes they cant control club's spending stupid money on the likes of the willie masons and luke pattens of the world.... but if they cant arrange suitable finances for the League in terms of sponsorship its hardly setting a great example.....

its embarrassing and worrying more than "Staring into the Abyss" as I think the BBC report says.......

but there's no such thing as bad publicity I think someone said.

Is this on nationally?

Don't know tbh but maybe at 3 50 am Tuesday like the SL show usually is !

It certainly isn't a level playing field when a club like Bradford can be brought to its knees for half a million whereas Rangers can get to £50 million before the plug is pulled. Re. United & Fulham , i bet the only people who can't sleep at night are their creditors.

They were discussing it this morning on 5 Live. There was someone from Leeds speaking a lot of sense about how it's great that once again the only time RL gets mentioned on the radio is when it is something negative. I wonder how many RU clubs are in the red?!

The thing that's wound me up about this is the shoddy journalism/self-promotion that is on show. The BBC presumably have had this guy from Hallam look into the finances, and then run the story on their website on the morning the programme will air (it's only on locally, in the North I believe, and the RL bit will only be one element of it, if the pevious format of Inside Out is followed - it's a local issues based 'magazine' type programme, so it might be 10 minutes max on this story).

However, to gain attention, they have gone with this headline grabbing strapline that "Using a term like 'Rugby League is staring at the financial abyss' is not too harsh a thing to say", attributing this to a "Sports finance expert". One of two things will have happened - either they phrased a question of "Is rugby league staring into the financial abyss", to which he has replied "That's not too harsh a thing to say", or he has volunteered this phrase as written during the course of an interview with him. The latter is unlikely (and he's an idiot, rather than a 'sports finance expert', if he did), whilst the former is clear a loaded question that Mr Wilson seems to have handled naively.

Regardless of the state of the sports finances, to use emotive language like this, to a largely uneducated (in financial terms) audience, is shockly reporting IMHO. It's aso a meangingless phrase, designed to generate publicity, but doesn't actually tell you anything. The RFL should be kicking the crap out of the BBC (one of their broadcast partners) for allowed this story to run in this fashion.

The story itself is a very valid one to run I feel. Recent issues might mean this is 'in vogue', but handled correctly, it could be a matter that is 'in the public interest' to look at. However, sports finance is a very complicated issue, and needs to be dealt with in a way that treats is as such - i.e. not the way this has been done.

I'll await the full story tonight, before saying too much about the actual content, but I am already expecting this to be a 'glass half full' story.

I am in the London area schedule, and it doesn't seem to feature. We have 'councils raising money from fines', 'London ending up in private hands' and Roy Hudd's birthday. Unfortunately I re-arrange my sock drawer on a Monday night so will miss it.

Not in the South, but probably wouldn't be of interest to many people sadly.

Agree with other posters that this 'story' is just sensationalistic journalism, and obviously timed to cause maximum grief

You sure, showing as a program about nuclear power on BBC North west on sky..

Only has a 5 - 10 min slot in said programme. Union clubs are in a far worst state.

cheers

That's something I never knew. I don't pay much attention to the sport at all but still would think I'd hear about it.

FFS, are the Beeb doing this just to wind me up - they're now running a story under the headline "Warrington's Tony Smith says 'reality check' needed" - my heart sank when I read this, wondering what he had said now. Basically, he says not a lot, and certainly nothing as strong as what is implied by the headline (which I took as 'things are in a right state and need sorting out').

Let me get this right, I'm paying the wages of the people writing this stuff?!? How do I demand a refund?

Have you tried watching via tvcatchup.com (a legal website btw)

when You logon you can set your region manually so you would get programmes relevent to that region.

That didn't really tell us anything, did it? It just seemed to be a "little rugby league is struggling" snippet aimed at people who don't know or care about the sport just to keep them updated that the sport is going nowhere fast and not to bother tuning in. They may as well have ended the piece with "we'll be back to inform you when the sport has turned to , don't bother watching in the meantime".

Thanks, I will try the site out now.

That was absolutely awful. 15 minutes of my life that I will never get back. NtW has it spot on.

I haven't watched it yet ,but i've recorded it for later. I see ITV4 give plenty of coverage of RU club matches which are repeated during the week at various times & when Sale were shown on Saturday night the attendance was worse than Salford's.

Right I've had a think ...and I've know decided to simply laugh at the fool Rob Wilson


what is a finance specialist anyway.....?

"there are too many clubs generating insufficient turnovers and generating too much cumulative debt........and that alarms me as someone that LOOKS AT FINANCES and somebody that researches THESE TYPES OF THINGS IN AN ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT..........


what a whoppa ...........If this was a senior figure at KPMG who had been instructed by the RFL to go through all clubs finances with the finest of fine tooth combs then I'd have to treat it with some seriousness...but he just looked like he knew he was going to say something controversial and was trying to back it up with his academic background.........

I look at girls knockers in all environments but I could'nt talk breast augmentation on a serious level though..........

I thought the 'academic environment' thing was a ridiculous thing to say. What a tool.

There's a link to his profile on Hallam's website on the Beeb's story on this this morning. Interestingly, it's under the 'media contacts' (or something similar) section of their website. Apparently, his area of research is football & rugby finances. I said above, if he said verbatim what the BBC were quoting he's no finance expert...

I can't remember the name of the fella, but there was a guy who used to be at Leeds Uni, but I think moved to Leeds Met who seemed to be the authority on sports finance - would have been interested to here from him. This isn't the kind of thing the Big 4 accounting firms would get into (in terms of playing up to the media), but I agree with you FB, is this had been based on an authoritative report, then it would have carried some weight.

As it is, it just smells of irresponsible journalism from the BBC, and I'm seriously considering a letter, rather than just ranting on here. I'm not suggesting they are 'league bashing' here - just doing a crap job! I would have actually liked to have seen a proper report on this, as I think it could have been interesting. That said, they've done a cack handed job of it - I probably could have given them more insight than the numpty they had on.

exactly... can you imagine something done similar for the premier league...without naming the individual clubs debts and or explaining them...?
"the premier league is 2.4billion pounds in debt, it's staring into an abyss ...thank you and good night...." ...... i dont think so

they'd be straight into Man U's £300 million pound debt right down to Wigan FC's £21 million debt...

not the best thing the BBC have done.....

You could have run the same programme about several premiership footy teams, and virtually any team outside the premiership. Same goes for RU, who are no better off than us in most cases.

What is undeniable is the financial management of some RL clubs is appalling, and has been for some time though we certainly aren't unique in that. When Marwan Koukash came out and described the financial affairs at Salford as appalling when he scrutinised them, it confirmed that too many clubs have been run for too long by very well-meaning people, but people who were woefully under-qualified to run a modern day business.

Whilst I'm not disputing some clubs might be poorly mis-managed I wouldn't rely on Koukash as the authority on that-don't forget he was in negotiations to buy that club at the time, so kinda had an agenda.

Which reminds me, shouldn't that deal be done by now...?!?