Nothing to do with Fozzard. These are sponsorship deals for next season. It was said the club have gone and renegotiated many of the previous deals in order to raise money. For instance, deals included giving away boxes, hospitality, signs around ground, scoreboard etc etc.

They have got rid of the perks on the sponsorship and sold these separately to raise more money hence the significant increase. This is through the work of Mark Grattan and Richard Pell, our Commercial Team.

That's my point. He was lauded as doing a fantastic job for getting sponsors in by the club and cas fans alike. Better revenue than previous years it was said BUT he was giving it away. Just hope he doesn't do the same at Wakey that's all. I'd be more confident if we employed an expert in the field than an ex player who's parents were accountants

If they are signing Smith Sammut and chase then one of them will be unhappy playing second fiddle.

I somehow doubt that all the players mentioned are going to Salford.

Most of the rumours are just lonely keyboard nerds looking for some conversation as they cannot get a girlfriend. Ignore them.

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but a mate of mine who's a Cas fan has told me the rumour he's heard is that they have signed both Smith's from us

can't see it myself

Take it with a pinch of salt. Probably come from the same place that lead to a thread on their forum yesterday about all our players and staff having to take a 15% paycut. Think they are just getting off on trying to de-stabilise us further.

Not an earthly!

With the sale of Chase to Salford plus the savings on the wage bill with his departure I recon we will have £450,000 to play about with. Add the extra sponsorship money and you then start to get the picture of where we can spend the full SC amount next year. The timing of this is excellent for Cas Tigers when you consider what we face next season. So, it looks like the money is there but I get the feeling it will go into the players wage budget next year - there will be no room for paying transfer fee's unless its a case of taking players for a free to ease the wage burden. Tim Smith would command a tranfer fee so I cannot see that happening, but Lee Smith looks a possibility IMO.

Regarding the 15% pay-cut rumour for WTW - if there was any truth in this I'm sure you would have heard about it from the players by now on twitter. Don't dismiss everything though on CasForum - you never know.

And what about the year after and the year after that?

You can only spend the Chase money once.

Exactly.
It's something of an obsession with us on the Nutjobs forum, you only have to take note of the threads with the highest number of replies, the thread on our CCJ's has by far the highest replies on the anything rugby league heading, closely followed by the Wakey vWidnes trouble! Talk about obsessed!

Next year is the pivotal year. They can claw back cash once the position in SL is cemented, which spending the full cap should deliver.

And that's exactly the perverse behaviour that this daft restructure will encourage; I can see more Bradford's on the horizon over the coming few years.

The impression they are giving is one of spending all the money next year to build a new team.

If so, it's a case of "clawing back" money, but rather of having to massively increase income (or spend money you don't have), in year 2 & 3 to maintain that team.

I don't see anyone signing a 1 year contract.

Mariano has signed a 1 year contract.

Lee Smith rumour is gathering pace around Wakefield.

You've not spoken to any of the staff recently then I take it.

I have heard about three, any chance of letting us know whats presently in vogue.

Quite correct - and what a year to spend it !

I think after next year things will calm down a little, the bottom four clubs at the top table should have enough to beat the best of the second tier without having to overspend, although if the teams below don't get almost parity in funding they may be tempted to push the boat out to get their nose in the SL1 trough the following season.

Fully agree and now we are going to end up in a situation where clubs are saying 'well so-and-so club are spending the full cap, we best do as well' whether they can afford it or not. The league is already built on very shakey financial foundations, this could easily be the death of many a club.

Put it this way, we ourselves find ourselves in a very tricky predicament. We have financial problems, that much is openly apparent. Now the sensible thing would be to cut our cloth to suit next year, and whilst we could stay competive it would probably mean a lower end finish but allow us to rebuild the business and come back stronger and also give Newmarket time to come to fruition. Licensing would have allowed that.

But now if we finish in the bottom two we are a championship side in 2015. The financial hit that relegation would bring would probably be too much for the club to take at this time and we would likely go under, the reduction in TV money, sponsorship and ticket income would be just too great. Players would depart en mass with their contracts null and void and staff would lose their jobs. Newmarket would probably not be able to happen in its currently planned form.

So what do we do? Selling any of our better players to raise money, Tim Smith, Danny Kirmond, Kyle Amor etc would weaken the team way too much and the fans wouldn't stand for it, resulting in poor season ticket sales and walk-ups next year. Cutting the budget to half a million less than pretty much every other team in the league is a sure-fire recipe for disaster once the injuries strike. We would be left with academy kids who just aren't ready for that kind of exposure yet. Yet for a struggling club to please the fans and say 'to hell with it, we'll speculate to accumulate', is a huge risk that could backfire with the most serious of consequences should it not work out.

So how would you play it next year?

A- Join the masses and spend more than we earn in the belief that it will give us a squad that will not only safeguard our superleague future but get us to the playoffs and the fans will back it. Then rebuild the business once Newmarket is operational.

B- Keep the same kind of budget as this year but upset the paying fans by selling some key squad players to clear the debts and try to find some suitable replacements in the hope that it is good enough to finish out of the bottom 2.

C- Cut the budget and run with a very small squad or one with very little quality in it as was done in 2011 and run the very real risk of relegation to the championship where we would find it hard to get back into the elite any time soon.

It is an extremely tough and unenviable choice to have to make and I myself am unsure which would be the best course to take.

Got to be B.

I don't know anything but its coming from a junior club he hangs around at.

If relegation was as bleak as you suggest it might as well be A. If the club were to cease either way they may as well go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

You would say that!

I think it's more nuanced than has been described; we don't know what is going on in the background and whilst there's talk of new investors looking to restructure the business, we don't know what that would entail and whether it would be acceptable to Mr Glover.

In the short term, I'd say that the club should do everything it can to retain a squad that will make us competitive next year; if that means taking some tough decisions, so be it - business is about tough decisions.

I have to agree though that missing the cut next year would be the death of WTW as we know it.

Very tricky predicament we find ourselves in given the importance of next season and our apparent financial state. But selling our best players and cutting the wage bill, will obviously put us in an even more shakey position next year in terms of relegation. Not only that, but the good crowds we've built up this season and last will probably start to decline, un-doing all that good work and obviously reducing revenue from that income.

In my opinion: we need to invest all we can in next season as it's possibly the most important season to date. It's a gamble given our financial state, but hopefully we can keep our fan base growing for the future, hopefully gain some more investors along the way and most importantly avoid relegation. What we don't want to be doing if we can help it, is weakening ourselves by selling our key players to the clubs who will be most likely battling it out with us next season i.e. Salford and Cas

C is certain death.

B death not inevitable but highly likely


A Best chance of survival.... hence my choice. Trouble is I don't believe our BOD have the money or can get the money to do it.


So here is another.

D Pull the plug at end of season, hope someone else will be tempted to come on board now club has lost all its financial liabilities. Said person(s) will have funds to run club in plan A mode.