I would like to ask Mr Carter about what he said yesterday. We were spending beyond our means ??????????

This cannot be on playing staff as we are probably one of the lowest spenders and we are well under the salary cap. We have all been let down badly once again. How much over spend on staff to player ratio. It is a complete joke and we have all been let down badly once again. Course I will buy my season ticket as Wakefield is in my blood but once again we have been let down badly once again! Overspending beyond our means they haven't got Wakefield at heart ! COMPLETE UTTER DISGRACE WE ALL DESERVE BETTER !

The people at the top were living beyond their means. I smell a huge rat it makes me sick

He kind of answered that by saying some of the players were paid way over the odds in his opinion.

Also, although I agree with your point, it is difficult to see how the overspend happened, but also, you don't know what your income is until the league is well under way



You sign players on contracts based on what you forecast to be your income.

Problems with that include, contracts come before season ticket offers - often people will wait to see what the team is before buying the tickets

Home games may not be spread evenly - we know that having Leeds, Bradford and Cas at the end of the season caused earlier cash flow issues.

You don't know when you are going to be on Sky. I think you get a £20k from Sky if you are on tv but that might be more or less than you would get if not on tv

Weather - !

Form of team - !

And of course Sponsors not able to pay



It isn't easy to do

To my mind it's simple. We have not generated sufficient income. Giving away season tickets last year did not help, even next years are underpriced, whatever team we manage to put on the field.



Most clubs are skint that is acknowledged. Most cannot generate the income to cover expenses, so expenses need to be cut. Biggest expenses are wages which equates to the salary cap being too high and players paid too much.



I am afraid rugby is becoming just like football and Dr K will not help this. Those with sugar daddies will survive those without will just have to cut their cloth accordingly. Just like football is the championship a far better league with a more level playing field?

If what we keep hearing about business plans is correct, then maybe the problem lies in the number of season tickets sold, rather than the cost (which is known from the outset, and factored into the plan). That said, it was the magical 10K crowds that were supposed to determine whether or not we could spend the full cap, not whether we could pay the cleaners.



We have a business plan drawn up for Newmarket as well, apparently, should we ever get there. God help us if the same persons were involved in drawing up both.

The difficulties lie in forecasting annual expenses vs annual income.

Its not like walking into woolworths and buying the goods in your basket.

SL is a very mismatched enterprise that with its habit of switching plans mid season doesnt help.

The Eric France thing suddenly left us high and dry, the weather left us high and dry with our big earning Leeds home game, the RFL pressuring us into un-necessary ground improvements have not helped, two years without any league sponsorship money isn't great either.

The fact that you can go weeks without a home game and therefore income (even during the season) isn't helpful.

These are all obsticles that are going against you before you start, many of them unforseen and some just down right unlucky or ludicrous.

Trying to marry income against all or some of these irregular factors does not make for a fun time when you have regular mayments going out, unless you have a very healthy bank account or a care free backer (we have neither) to help you through the inevitable tough times.

Look at it this way if your employer varied your pay day and your income each month how would you arrange your direct debits each month.

Without doubt we havent helped ourselves and we know where the blame lies, one has lost a lot of his own money and some credibility, the other has proven himself to be incompetent, lacking in dignity and without credibility. Both have been dishonest with the fans for right or wrong.

What it shows is that without a uber money generating club or backing from a Jonny Dollars this is the kind of business running a SL club is.

For me the biggest culprit in all this is the game of SL rugby itself.

I would argue that much of the RFLs shambolic leadership has led to us and other clubs (of a type) to be in similar strife, keeping up with your rivals in a scramble to avoid being the bottom of the pack even without promotion and relegation has proven to be a costly exercise for many.

You only have to look at the SL table to spot the really succesful clubs, and they are few, the rest are just basket cases with a dream.

All expouse good financial management, but it doesnt take much to scratch the surface and see the majority of the game for what it was.

So you see it is easy to spend beyond your means, its just a case of where you apportion blame, abd then how you can fathom a way forward in a sea of unfathomable problems.

I think he's intimating that people other than the players have been taking too much, you don't need seasonal forecasts to set wages for admin staff who are permanent and as such should have their wages set on the basis of the guaranteed income as in Sky payments, so it begs two questions :-



1. what percentage of the wage budget was paid to non playing staff ?



2. who determined what those wages were?

One point he made about looking after the accounts until November, then getting someone in to doing them and taking his eye off the ball.

Is this around the time we brought in someone to take over the finances because of the CCJ's we were receiving?

Does that mean that he was in charge of dealing with the finances at the time of last Octobers 'oversight' with HMRC which lead to a winding up petition being issued?

Look lets put all this in a nut shell!. All superleague teams except Leeds Wigan and the bank rolled teams are in financial difficulties to say the least.

This is not of their making and should not be blamed, the start of these problems goes back to the introduction of superleague and the blame lies firmly at the door of the RFL.

It was their pipedream to copy football and make the game a full time global sport and if us supporters of the game are honest we know that this would never work. The game belongs along the M62 corridor and big full time football wages are not affordable.

It is my belief that the teams supporting this move originally (indeed instigating it) would be Leeds and Wigan the only ones at that time because they could afford it, well maybe they will end up like the old firm teams Celtic and Rangers and play one another half a dozen times home and away whilst the rest go back to reality pre Superleague.

We have tons of commercial staff why when we were in trouble financially we keep hiring? a 1500/2500 salary per month will take its toll on the club. I think our playing staff budget is about right. Don't get it.