I was just wondering how you could secure a loan against Newmarket when you do not own the site and will only be tenants. Am I reading it right that WTWC have already tried to secure loans against public community facilities?

I would also point out that their is a certain irony here. You would like the Soc to pass Newmarket despite much of the development been inappropriate, with regard current legislation, as you believe that it is for the good of the whole district, and as such the local residents(nimbys) would have to take hit for the greater good of the District and WTWC. Well in a sense the RFL believe the inclusion of the Crusaders at any cost is for the greater good of RL and as such are bending over backwards to accommodate them, leaving you to take the hit for the greater good of RL.

And finally can anybody answer my question about what would happen to Belle Vue if you went into administration.

I'n not sure but I believe that the ground has already been sold and the monies have been drawn down and used (!!) so effectively apart from a blow up pussy the club does not have any assests. I stand to be corrected though.

You could be right however I believe the public line is that they have only recieved 50% of the value. I do find it strange that the people with connections at the club are not answering this question.

I would also like to say on the subject of the crusaders that, when teams were exempt from relegation, thus allowing them constants access to the sky money at the detriment of others, this was the thin end of the wedge, and people voted for it at the time and have not had an issue whilst cocooned within a 3 year franchise.

Someone may have listened to you

Id be interested to know exactly what assurances the rfl, sl and the stadium developers were giving to the previous potential investors. If they were told what they are will the potential new investors?

Altough i do not agree with the RFL supporting Crusaders in any way shape or form, why should the RFL help Wakefield out ? we cannot blame the RFL for our shortfalls can we ? we have failed to attract investers for years does that not tell you something ? either we are not a good investment or the current BOD were not very good at their job ?. The RFL did nowt to help Blackpool what makes Wakefield any different ?

Yes I agree we shouldn't be blaming the RFL for the mess that we as a club are in. The ground was a dump when I started watching 20 years ago so why did we wait so long to try and sort a new ground out?

Ted said he would have gone in 2001 if someone would have come forward to take over, I wonder what would have happened if the 500,000 share offer was available back then and the fans took it up? Where would we be now?

I'm not excusing the BoD of anything but the RFLs decision to support Crusaders move into Administration has had serious repercussions for Wakefield and many other clubs, they are negligent in their actions for failing to anticipate the HMRCs reaction.

Sorry for being a bit thick but can someone clarify. Because Crusaders opted for administration this made HMRC rip up all superleagues clubs repayment plan agreements..? If so is this liable to affect a number of other clubs now and in the future. If so if clubs had to vote to keep them in Superleague it looks like it's back fired big style. Is Superleague going to consist of Rich backers only in the future..?

this is the part that morally makes me think this share offer is wrong, and on another point the chronology of all this is disturbing, when did all these events take place?

the investor meeting with rfl
the letter to clubs from the rfl re tax bills
what did sir rw's cash actually cover in months and years

not one single person to blame in all this but quite a few in reality, going to be a tough decision for me re the 1k, i can afford it but frankly i cant see it happening, and i certainly would not advise others to do so if asked.

Does any club in Football's Premier League, Union's Premiership, even the Elite League of Ice Hockey in this country have any other kind of business model? Top level sport is a rich man's plaything, it's hard to make money from these things, only throw it away. The owners are in it for prestige and philanthropic nature of the beast, or they are fools!

The decision whether to back the share offer is yours and yours alone...obviously, but don't confuse it with anything else. It's the fans who are going to have to drive this NOT the BoD, they will have nothing to do with it other than publicising the plight of the club and any initiatives that might help.

The fans, like you, me and many others have to decide whether to build this fighting fund/share issue/investment/donation call it what you will. If and when we have enough we can decide what to use it for or it can be repaid, IN FULL with nothing lost, to each and every contributor.

Clan
your the person whos posts on here i most respect, but in this case i think we have to be very careful, if we raise the 500k theres no doubt what the cash will be used for, aged debt build up because we did not meet our tax liabilities during some period, now i for one would want to know what period, its fairly basic, because if we have not changed our payment policies there could be another coming, and another etc.

not having a go in any way, never could you knowledge of the game is far greater than mine but i cant get my head round why we owe 350k to hmrc if sir rod paid off last bill just before xmas!! what periods do these 2 payments cover?

Dont forget the GBP 194k that was paid when we sold atkins

Not being funny here, but have we [iever [/ipaid any tax to HMRC since we joined SL? It doesn't look like it...

I'm not privy to all the dealings at the club so I don't have an answer re which period(s) this TAX bill covers, I do know that Image rights aside there are no others.

Not wishing to be dismissive but does it really matter what the £500K is spent on as long as it safeguards the future of the club. Any money raised will go into the kitty that the club needs in order to function and whether it's a Tax bill, an electric bill or settling a caterer’s invoice.

Again I'll state that even if you take a share offer now, before anything is done with the money you and every other contributor will get to choose whether you want to use for the clubs benefit or have it paid back to you. You can even choose to just leave it where it is and wait for more clarity on the clubs situation before making a final decision.

actually yes it does matter, its about securing it for how long, if we are regularly getting in to problems of about the 300-350 k region on tax then the 150k left over over the 500 is going to go pretty soon, and this tie next year we will be in the same boat, if not sooner. This for me is heart vs head and at present i really dont know.

The NEW BoD will be the ones tasked with ensuring that we operate within budgets that don't get us into defecit, easier said than done.

Agreed. There seems to be a cycle of us not paying the tax man on a regular basis, so if and when we raised the cash to pay this one off, how are we going to be able to ensure we are not here again in 12 months time? That has to be the ultimate question

can you see that actually being possible and also being in any way competative in super league in the next 3-5 years, honestly?

Well the current people running the club will be history leaving the way open for a new BoD that can run the club more prudently than the last.

There might be some harsh decisions to make and some fine judgements to balance, we might need to look at youth promotion instead of overseas players. That in turn may not fit our coach's outlook and he may not want to be associated with it or he might feel liberated by it. who knows but one thing is for sure, the fans will have a greater say and there will be more transparency and communication. There surely has to be lessons learnet from the past!

Clan, does your response here not suggest that you like many others on here realise that at this time we simply are not financed for SL and that in the circumstances a drop down the league would make us a more viable proposition for the long term, rather than a potential further 12 months or few years struggling in SL, as was stated on another thread

Honestly, it would be a hard task but that something that Wakefield has always thrived on.

I've used my best judgement over the years to assess the relative playing strengths of Wakefield Trinity and poor squads on paper have constantly amazed me while the more talented squads have often let us down.

In the short term things may be hard but the club and the business will be there to build back up and eventually support a stronger squad.

agree with everything there, sometimes it was better when we had nowhere to go but up, when we did get a bit up we found we only really had the resources and public support to go down again, now we are at a decision stage for fans and club members alike, do we want a club and if so does it have to be a SL club?
Its easy to see now that as a club we needed an ellis westwood atkins etc to come along every year, mainly to sell on and balance the books, we all maybe knew it all along.

my answers to the 2 questions being yes and no by the way

There's much I don't know about the financing and expenditure of the club so I really could'nt say.

I don't think we are that far off being able to break even, maybe a sponsorship or two, maybe a semi wealthy backer or two, maybe some radical backroom cuts.

Who knows what a new ownership would bring, perhaps people unwilling to get involved with the old would welcome a partnership with the new.

We shouldn’t meekly throw our current status in the gutter, we fought too hard to get it and even harder to retain it thus far. A period of reorganisation and then rebuilding could see us prosper. Don't buy into the comments that people make about Newmarket being a pipe dream, Newmarket is no smoke and mirror attempt to gain a franchise it's for real and is likely to happen. When it does we will still have a lot of hard graft to do but we will be able to see light at the end of the tunnel!