In many ways that's akin to sweeping it under the carpet and not governing a sport correctly. For me special measures isn't and wouldn't be a sufficient punishment. The so called special measures so far have affectively been suspended due to no action being taken other than more meetings etc. Asking for an advance is one thing but it certainly seems to have been more than that and has put the up coming season in to the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. With less than a month to go before the season starts it's still up in the air in regards to Salford. I hope Salford do survive but there has to be lessons learned, action taken and consequences for Salford, RFL and IMG, if not what's the point in any of the rules etc the clubs have to follow?

In the article it specifically says “overseas investment” similar to London so it appears as though NRL is taking over Super League by stealth.

The problem is that just about any action that could be taken could be deemed as unfair or could create other problems. Or both.

I’m not even sure what the lessons we learn from this are, never mind the actions that should be taken. Several current and former clubs in SL have had much worse financial crises than this one at Salford - with wildly varying consequences.

Based on what we know, what would you recommend should be done in terms of punishment?

I can see what your saying with the start of the season in the air but until they break some kind of pre defined rule or go into administration I don’t see how they can be punished, as far as I know there’s no financial sustainability rules like in football, it’s hard to see what they’ve done wrong, assuming they can now pay the advance back and fulfil their obligations to the league. Maybe part of the agreement of them going into ‘special measures’ was to carry some kind of punishment but I doubt it.

Obviously lessons need to be learned but the only thing they can really do is introduce financial sustainability rules, trouble is every SL club would need to be punished because it appears nobody is running a sustainable business at the moment.

I know it’s a difficult one and let’s be honest they way things operate in this sport we will never the full details. I do think a minor pts deduction and possibly even some form of suspended fine for the 2025 season.

The sport really isn’t in a great position and this current situation paints the sport in pretty poor light. For this to come out so soon after the IMG gradings were announced I don’t think is a coincidence. For me the whole IMG grading system has proven to flawed somewhat if this can be allowed to happen.

Some form of financial sustainability needs to a part of a clubs responsibility as part of being in the SL. I guess that would just open up a can of worms but shows how poorly the sport is both governed and managed by the RFL and the Clubs themselves.

Ironically the last time Salford were deducted points was the year they relegated us in the million pound game, i know you guys took great pleasure in that (and rightly so as we would have done the same to you in that situation) but as we are talking of fairness, they were in a much higher league position, so therefore a much better team than us at the time, but the deduction brought them down to the playoffs, so by default we had to play a better team rather than a team around our level and as such were punished for Salford's discrepancy. Hindsight and all that says it did us the world of good but the system well and truly screwed us at the time.

I'm quite happy to miss out on Cross, as it wouldn't strengthen us greatly, but if there was a firesale clubs like Leigh, Cas, Leeds and Rovers would sign the better Salford players and be much stronger.

I can't see to be honest otherwise the Red Devils and London Broncos would be owed by NRL clubs by now, but i won't dismiss that one or both clubs could be taken over by Australian consortiums with perhaps present or past NRL connections but no NRL clubs.

I think as others have said, ultimately have Salford actually broken any rules? If the answer is yes then they need to be punished. If the answer is no, can you punish a club for being on the brink? I think at the time it was announced Salford were being placed under "special measures" it was described as them being in administration without actually being in administration. So would administration penalties (a points deduction for example) apply or not? The truth is with the RFL anything can (and will) happen so who knows!

As for what can be learnt from the situation, I think the key questions to ask Salford are what did they do to get into this situation and what could they have done differently. I say all this not as a reason to punish them but so that it can act as a cautionary tale to others so we don't see other clubs end up in similar circumstances. This isn't just for other clubs to learn from but the RFL and IMG as well because questions rightfully need to be asked of them regarding how they failed to spot just how bad things were getting for Salford before now.

In theory then Salford should have won all of their games and finished top of that middle 8's thing with Leigh and Huddersfield (?) playing the million pound game.