satanicmills wrote:so fans can draw a veil and pretend things are ok?
rather than take note of what eddie hearn had to say ?
I don't see a link between Hearn's comments and Salford's plight.
The Hearn interview includes his comments upon the lack of high profile sportspeople in SL compared with darts. There is an element of self-congratulation in his comments in so far as the high level funding deal that he has been able to negotiate for darts from SKY.
What I have not seen in the interview is either his comments upon the financial position or predicament of RL as a sport nor indeed any comments whatsoever on the plight of Salford. I do not see a link in his interview.
What I have seen is Martyn Sadler's recent article in Total Rugby League in which he draws that potential link. I stress the word 'potential'
Despite Sadler's comments I don't see any persuasive argument for why SL should treat Salford as a special case nor why other clubs should bail them out. As respected an RL journalist as Sadler is I find his 'solution' on this particular issue to be somewhat naive and fanciful. I really will eat my hat if the club owners dip into their respective pockets to bail out Salford with a collective owners handout!
The argument seems to be that if Salford are stripped of their best players then by implication their team will struggle because they will have to field a team of academy players simply to fulfil fixtures. Games against them will be largely meaningless. This in turn will be to the detriment of the sport
Forgive me but last season we had 2 fairly atrocious teams in London and Hull who did not have much hope of beating anybody other than themselves and fixtures against them were pretty meaningless except as an exercise in boosting points differential.
I didn't hear cries of outrage for either club last season, nor did i hear arguments that because they were so poor that it was symptomatic of the end of RL as we know it. It didn't happen so I don't see why it should happen this season if it is Salford who are the whipping boys.
Bradford & Widnes were allowed to sink into the Championship where they were forced to face financial reality and to cut their cloth accordingly. Both clubs are, i believe, still in existence and are largely semi-professional outfits. Life goes on and surely this will also have to happen to Salford.
The issue of SL being a loss maker and the clubs being dependent upon rich owners to write off losses is a big issue and the answer or answers is/are beyond me. However, i do not accept that the ship is sinking. Sure, it needs fixing, but propping Salford up is not part of that solution.
There are owners with sound business heads on who have good ideas about how to attract funding and how to increase the profile of the sport and how to attract new investment and boost attendances. RL could do a lot worse than listening to Derek's very persuasive views on the subject.
