BBC Sport website

1) Richard Lewis - Upbeat on health of game

2) Wakefield - make new investment plea, need £500k by end of January or clubs future is in danger.

I'm not argueing for the sake of it, but wern't Wakey shafted because of something to do with the new stadium, rather than general running of the club? I might be wrong, I think no matter what, they're out and Widnes are in and SL will be a healthier place for it.

A spokesman for the Rugby Football League said the organisation was "aware of Wakefield's problems" and it had been talking to the team for several months "in an effort to help them see through it, as we would with any club in difficulty."

This would be the same RFL that let Blackpool go to the wall I assume.

Wouldn't call it shafted, they simply didn't plan for what might happen if there were problems with the planning permissions. It seems they were relying on a loan of £360k or something based on PP being granted. Recently had Sir Rodney Walker pay a big bill for them.

How is a game defined as healthy based on the goings on at Cru and Wakey, and last year 9 out of 14 SL clubs recording drops in attendances. Don't you remember, Mr Lewis talks rubbish every time he opens his mouth(NW Tonight 200icon_cool.gif.

Surprised this particular Dick does not get a job at FIFA.

Derek the drop in attendances has nothing to do with most games being friendlies

Ours went up but Leyth is recession proof as I notice every time I travel the 13 miles home.

The RFL doesn't run Wakefield, why would these statements be contradictory?

Come on Joe, a member club pleading for money and the game is healthy?

That they are now saying the knew about for months... Same comment made about Quins, Cru & Blackpool! So if they know fully about all these problems how on earth is the game in good health

IF DICK Lewis speaks, I do my best to 'not read' it.

i would laugh my tits off if leeds lose the image rights court case.

Why? It would effect every club including are own and should we have large bills hanging over from SL can't see RFL jumping to help out, can you?

How will it effect the clubs in the Championships ? , how many of us are paying ' image rights ' ?

From what I gather it's more a case of former image rights payments. The HMRC closed the loophole so all sports clubs started working around the new rules but the HMRC wants back payment on previous instances.

RFL jumping in to help who ?

So which clubs in the Championship will have paid players image right payments ?

There's a difference between the state of the game and the state of an individual club. Wakey's problems are despite having more support from the RFL than ever. If they fail, their SL place will go to the best of the three championship club applications. Chances are a Wakefield professional club would survive in some form (how many times have we gone bust... twice? at least?).

Most of the member clubs plead for money most of the time, because for the most part they are run for the short term.

But its not just one club is it.

Crusaders
Wakefield
Blackpool
Whitehaven
Keighley
Oldham
Batley

We also know that HKR have debts somewhere between 2 an 3mill

All those have either gone or had serious issues with HMRC amongst others....and they are only the ones we know about.

dont forget quins who are 100% dependent on one mans generosity.

Think you could say the same about a club nearer to your heart.

The thing is though Joe , that 2 years ago we increased the number of clubs in the top tier , since then we have had one club fold ( twice in reality ) and another announce severe financial difficulties , we also know of several others that are all struggling , all this with an extra 6 million pounds per season in SL since

Add to this several lower tier clubs folding and all but one or two struggling

Hardly " Everything is rosy " wouldn't you say

iv'e no doubts at all frank that AT has invested an awful lot of money into the infrastructure of the club but do you think he's bankrolling us the same as hughes is at quins ?.

if hughes pulls out of quins they'll cease to exist,do you think that would happen to us?.

I dont.

Well I just know it is a lot and to answer your question without AT I would rather not think about it quite honestly.

we both agree on the importance of AT to leigh rl.
this clubs built on more than one mans money frank.

There's plenty of us in that boat j.c.

OK, open question:

What is the RFL supposed to do about its profligate clubs?

This is the state of the game:

There is more money in the game than ever before. The clubs receive more than ever before.
We have 3 games a week on telly
Our sport draws almost double the tv audience of rugby union, it's closest rival
We have 7 Challenge Cup games a year on terrestrial telly
Our cup final is the centrepiece of terrestrial sports coverage on that day
We have a unique event (Magic) to open our season that covers every game live
All our England internationals are covered live, regardless of where in the world they happen
We have major sponsorship from family-friendly sponsorts (Engage, Barr, Gilette, Co-Op, Northern Rail)
We have the biggest per-player Development grant of any sport
We have a world cup here in 2013 that the Government has guaranteed to underwrite
England are top 3 in the world. Wales are 4th. Ireland and Scotland are in the top 12.
We are developing the international game in France, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Czech, Norway, Jamaica, Russia, Georgia, Lebanon, the USA, South Africa, Canada, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
We have a major biannual home international competition against the world's best (four nations)
we have a unique annual world club competition
our two major finals were both sold out this year
For the SL clubs, they have (had) three years guaranteed in the top flight.
We make an annual profit.

That is (ALL) the work of the RFL.

Against that framework, the majority of clubs, in both SL and Championship, do not balance their budgets. Several are in financial straights and would have gone bankrupt without the RFL advancing them money.

How do we solve that?