I agree (with one slight caveat, below). It’s mostly down to wider economic trends rather than poop management, imo. Which isn’t to say that the management isn’t poop, just that even if it was good it would only mitigate and not solve the problem.

It doesn’t even feel worthwhile discussing making the sport sustainable at this point.

That caveat - Salford spending beyond their means. It’s foolish from one pov, but the structure of the league and central distributions means clubs in that position (i.e. no sugar daddy) are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

It's a compelling argument against increasing the salary cap. Pretty much no club can sustain spend at the current levels without outside support let alone an increased one. Union is a prime example of removing the spending ll8mits leading to stupid decisions being made.

Why should Salford be bailed out by the other clubs again when their business model clearly isn't sustainable whilst better run lower league clubs are left where they are

I feel sorry for the fans who have put money in to the club to help out but the club should have known better as they went through this after the Koucash reign..they sold Ackers and Croft last season and got £350.000? To help them out….what’s to say they won’t do this in 2026 as well.

If the Salford woes had serviced a month or so ago I think they would have lost their Super League status

Good post as usual Wilf. I don't think it's a new thing though. Neither Hull or Rvrs were financially sustainable in the 80's hence their problems soon after. Leed's and Widnes both went close to bankruptcy soon after. Wigan certainly ruled the roost till they had to sell it!
Bulls went for it but couldn't keep up with what they spent and it wasn't till St Helens were taken over that they were saved.

Questions need to be asked what financial checks they are so not, this black hole didn't appear in like 6 weeks since the season ended.

When we clearly dont have enough money coming into the game then you have to ask why have the RFL paid IMG circa £500000 for nothing but a flawed grading system.
The RFL could have told Wakefield and Castleford their grounds needed to be improved and added their own sanctions rather then hand out so much money for nothing.
What we dont know is how much they are liable to pay these spreadsheet Charlies over the contract period.
If its the same level as the first payment then thats just money down the drain which could have been used a lot more wisely to enhance the game and also used as an emergency fund for clubs in trouble.

Perhaps they should get Mr Starmer and MS Reeves in they seem to be experts a black holes and how to fix them

Just reading an article that Union is thinking of having a two leg playoff between the bottom side and Championship winner...but the Championship club will have to meet stadium criteria or have fimr ground improvement plans in place to go up, and its believed only Doncaster RU meet the criteria for the whole league. So we aren't the only sport pulling the drawbridge up to lower league teams.

Ealing Trailfinders finished top of the RU championship last year for the second time in three years but were refused entry to the Premiership because of their ground only having a capacity of 5000 (2200 seats). there's a lot of claims of elitism and 'snobbery' about the way they operate though.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ommunities Watch us end up with some plodder like Singleton

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... ommunities Watch us end up with some plodder like Singleton

It was always going to happen to the Red Devils as soon as clubs became aware that they had financial problems, and I say again if they had been honest from the start they would have lost their Super League status.
They have made a mockery of Super League and IMG

Matt Shaw now reporting an Aussie consortium are considering investing in Salford, read somewhere Robbie Farah wants to invest in the London Broncos too. The NRL are coming... but dealing directly with clubs rather than the RFL

I wouldn't blame anybody not wanting to deal directly with the insular RFL

Or the Salford chairman

Looks like the clubs have chickened out of passing judgement on Salfords advance as they are really concerned about their future ability to continue, in their present circumstances. So they have left the advance on their Sky money or otherwise up to The RFL and Rugby League Commercial. Oh dear!

That’ll end well then you’d think







From what I’ve read about Salford’s situation it certainly isn’t good as it’s not so much a cash flow issue as they seem to mad out. It’s seems to be more a case of a revenue stream they’d budgeted on simply wasn’t something that was a guaranteed option and a gamble to have done so.

Think the rest of SL should be rightly concerned on a number of things such as Salford being in such a hole financially at this stage, the fact they’ve spent what they simply haven’t got and whether they are actually a sustainable & viable prospect currently.

It also opens up to questioning the governance of the clubs & the IMG set up when a club has been able to get in such a big hole financially.

Think you hit on a fundamental issue there with modern-day rugby league (Super League in particular).

The endless tinkering with formats, the constant alterations to the calendar, the absence of traditional kits and colours, have all led to a sport which no longer has a recognizable identity. Union have managed to move with the times (eventually!) and expand their international game whilst maintaining links with their heritage to give a certain sense of continuity.

Even football, despite all the seismic changes which have happened in the sport over the past thirty years, have maintain links with their past. Man City were crowned champions last season by the same method and format that every other champions of England have done since league football commenced. We, on the other hand, seem to alter the play-off format every two or three years, creating little in the way of historical continuity.

Your point about traditional kits is highly pertinent in my opinion. The colours a club plays in are part of their image, identity and history, so why on earth don't all RL clubs celebrate that fact.
We should always, wherever possible, play in black & white irregular hoops. That kit, in those colours and design, are a part of what we are and who we are and we should celebrate it loud and proud, as should all other rugby league clubs.
In this age of corporate branding, I'm amazed that IMG didn't pick up on this in their attempt to reimagine the game for the 21st-Century.

There are so many issues with how the game is run and presented in the present-day, but the way we have burnt the bridges to our past in the name of chasing short-term gimmicks and fads is one of the biggest mistakes the sport as a whole has made. We've ended up (over the past thirty years) in losing a great deal of history, tradition and identity whilst gaining very little new in the so-called name of progress.

Maybe I'm just another old-timer with his head stuck in the past, but these days I increasingly struggle to see exactly what the sport is aiming to be, who it is aiming itself at and how it projects itself as an exciting vibrant sport, which it still can be despite all of the endless going round in circles that we have witnessed throughout the summer Super League era.

(And that's my rant over for tonight! I went off on one as usual!



).

That’s not what BBC Sport is saying. Apparently the clubs have agreed to the advance of £500,000.

That £500000 they have just wasted on a load of spreadsheets would have come in handy

Also, Castleford (IMG Grade A) are now reporting that their new stand will not be built until September 2026 at the earliest.

Not the clubs they've washed their hands of it and chickened out and it's the RFL that agreed (straight away I would add) to advancing them £500,000 of the money. I wonder if that's because the clubs feel that they should have instigated more vigorous and in depth scrutiny of the IMG club submissions this year in any case. But Why are we not surprised eh? I read Cas's news about the earliest they can even start work on their stand with interest and noted the timing of the announcement, you can't help but be sceptical can you.

Have to agree Pete the timing of both Salford coming out asking for an early advance and now Cas with their ground development I would say isn't just coincidental. We lose points due to having another team in the same City and the pixel size is not good enough on the 2 UEFA approved screens yet Cas are given a Grade A then announce not long after their stand won't be going ahead just yet. As you say you can't help but be sceptical and with genuine reason.

The whole game from top to bottom is a mess and the RFL with such a quick decision on handing over the money so easily to Salford you have to question if they have actually done any due diligence in to the financial risks and also any penalties that should be imposed on Salford.
The IMG situation seems to be just another in the long list on money loosing ideas that the game can ill afford and any real value that the grading system had for me has been blown out the water with this latest news.

You have to ask who has been doing the auditing of the clubs...... Stevie Wonder perhaps

I think the recent posts on here regarding the Salford situation do sum up why our game is struggling and it's not just one particular thing. The clubs were concerned about Salford's long term stability and yet the RFL jump straight in and grant them the cash they were seeking. Time will tell whether it's the right or wrong decision but it shows that the clubs and the RFL aren't in alignment. Not just on this but pretty much on everything.

We can all criticise the RFL over their decision making and incompetence through the years but a lot of the time it seems to me that it's the clubs themselves causing issues, that they have too much power over the sport hence all the constant chopping and changing of formats. Case in point, Batley's proposal to reinstate promotion and relegation again after only just changing the format to a grading system. It would not surprise me if it passes and then next year another motion is put forward scraping it that also gets passed.

Whatever people's thoughts are on IMG, it doesn't matter whether it is them or another marketing company or someone like an Eddie Hearn as rumoured a few years back, unless the governing body and the clubs learn to unite under a common goal of betterment of the sport as opposed to what increasingly looks like self interest, we will continue to struggle.

The whole situation smacks of short-termism, the kind of which is rife throughout the sport. The game seems to exist on a day to day, hand to mouth policy.
I suspect the reason why Salford have been bailed out is due to the governing bodies being fearful of the wider consequences for the game if a club were to go under, without an obvious replacement, especially at this late stage in the year.
Whether they have simply kicked the can down the road for a short period only time will tell, but reading between the lines it sounds like this advanced loan will only get Salford over a short-term bump in the road. It doesn't indicate that this is going to solve their underlying longer term issues. Who's to say Salford won't be back in 6/9 months time with the same predicament?

You get the feeling the RFL are afraid we could end up with a 6-8 team competition, hence why Salford and Castleford are being given leeway which would, on the surface, seem to go against the current (IMG) philosophy of long-term sustainability. It's certainly difficult to escape the feeling that some clubs have been keeping aspects of their operation under wraps, away from scrutiny, until such time they feel their place in the structure is safe.
Either way, the news stories surrounding Salford and Castleford once more give an impression of a sport bumbling along, temporarily fixing the holes in the dam, hoping that eventually all will magically fall into place.
It certainly makes our problems with over-large pixel screens seem fairly inconsequential, that's for sure!