Quote ="Rogues Gallery"I think the six clubs who are due to play on that 1st day (2nd August) were the ones under most pressure to get the deals sorted quickly. As for Bateman as I said that money will be from players leaving at the end of this season so any wage cuts are irrelevant imo of course.
Then of course we have the Leeds situation whereby they are claiming it is unfair for them to have to travel to Catalan because they are allowed to have a crowd (up to 5,000 I believe) in attendance which according to GH will put Leeds at a disadvantage and they would rather Catalan travel to the U.K. and play the game behind closed doors at a neutral venue?'"
While it would make sense that time pressure to get sorted and resume training would drive clubs to seek to complete negotiations quickly (and could have led to some clubs agreeing on smaller cuts than they would have preferred due to time pressure) the split hasn't worked out totally along those lines. According to press reports Hull KR are one of those not in agreement (said to be pretty far from agreement in media reports when 3 clubs were said to have agreed) and they play on August 2nd while Hull FC who don't (and the owner of whom was frequently speaking to the press about financial strain during the suspension) were one of if not the first to come to agreement with their squad. For whatever reason exactly some clubs haven't reached agreement I imagine the financial position of clubs and players and the opinions of players as to how equitably the proposed terms treat them is a factor.