I agree with both side of teh argument to an extent although (an cas fans rarely do) i have to side with our Wakefield colleague.

On one side having a new stadia does open up a massive amount of opportunity for commercial success - corporate entertaining for example is massivly higher in new stadia compared to old ones. This obviously helps to make clubs more revenue and supposedly for viable businesses.

on the other hand new stadia cost a lot to run and maintain - and if Salford is anything to go by hardly a receipe for sucess. failure to get the desired level of income from teh stadia results in it being a hinderance to success as apposed a catalyst.

However before you even get to the new stadia clubs are being forced to spend huge amounts of money on designs - legal fees and the such. Which in the current climate clubs simply can not afford - simply beacuse the RFL want new stadia to appear on TV - which makes teh marketability of the game as a whole go up and inturn sponshorship revenue - Well sort of assuming you dont sell it for free!!

ok, to sum up:

Anybody who was an RL fan in 1994/5 when Superleague was born, will remember that one of the major plus points to the changes was the fact that the Sky money, and increased revenues would bring financial stability. Big clubs teetering on the brink of extinction is nothing new. Ask the fans of clubs such as Wigan, Hull, Halifax etc...

But SL was meant to change that! It has'nt

Its not neccesarily the RFL's fault either. Its the clubs that are living beyond their means. earlier in this thread a Saints fan was going on about income streams being improved at Lp as opposed to KR. One man has funded your new ground. the club alone, on income generated or bank lending would never have got the money needed. what happens if Eamonn decides he wants his money back? How long would it take to pay off such a debt? Look a Bradford City. Thier major outgoing that is crippling their ambition is the rent the pay a former director who owns the ground!


Rugby league is a sport that can never compete as a financial money spinner with union. mainly because our international game is not strong enough! why try. There are thousands of lads running around playing the amateur game who would love a shot at being a semi pro. Our game will not die if our players are not full time! but it will if the sugar daddy benefactors at many of the SL clubs pullout!

As would you adding an argument to back up your version of events, rather than that half d effort!!!

Not true, in fact I would venture that a pretty small proportion came from EM for our new ground.

Sale of KR, Tesco partnership, council contributions and yes cash from directors/shareholders, but by no means all from EM. In fact, as a shareholder I had the opportunity to vote on loan funding from one of EM's contacts rather than EM himself.

I'm not saying it's easy, but by the same token it's not a matter of moneybags McManus piling cash into a stadium - it has been a long and complicated process raising funds from many different sources.

I asked you to back up your argument. You failed. It's not really incumbent on me to produce a 'version of events' when I'm not the one claiming that 'events' occured. However, as I've got a spare moment or two...

London went bump because the guy paying the bills stopped doing so. There are several other clubs that could easily happen to, and not all of them are in SL. It happened to clubs way before SL was even a gleam in Murdoch's eye. Not the RFL's fault.

Crusaders went bump because the owners were more interested in property development than running an RL club. You could argue that what failed here was a 'fit and proper person test' and I wouldn't necessarily disagree. RFL partly at fault then.

Wakey. You basically said that your club lied to the RFL and then you blamed the RFL for believing the lies. Have a word with yourself. Nobody's fault but the incompetents running the club.

Bradford were not audited by KPMG. Neither was anyone else. KPMG are retained to carry out an analysis of the business plans put forward by the clubs as part of the application process. Their report gave a favourable verdict on the Bradford business plan (with some reservations) and the RFL licence reflected the findings of that report. But you'd rather believe that KPMG and the RFL colluded to give Bradford a licence in the full knowledge that they were virtually bankrupt. Deary me.

indeed and ironically it happened to bradford northern in 1963