BY JOHN DAVIDSON
“WE learn from history that we learn nothing from history,” playwright George Bernard Shaw once opined.
That phrase came to mind when Widnes Vikings almost became extinct last week. World Club Challenge champions 30 years ago, the Vikings went into administration amid huge mounting debts.
They were saved at the final hour by an incredible fan fundraising initiative, which raised more than £100,000, and a new seven-strong consortium of local businessmen. The outpouring of emotion and support in the Cheshire town was keenly felt among the rugby league community. A proud, historic club had been saved.
While there is relief that Widnes still exist, hard questions and deep issues remain about how the club found itself in this dire position a mere five months after it was relegated from Super League. The Chemics are far from out of the woods.
The similarities between the Vikings and the dramatic fall of the Bradford Bulls is alarming. What is even more worrying is the fact that rugby league does not learn from its mistakes.
Since 2010 a huge amount of professional and semi-professional clubs across the UK have been hit by financial difficulties. Several have gone into administration, several have been killed off completely and many been forced into cutbacks and player wage cuts in a bid to survive. Some remain on life support.
The outlook is undeniably gloomy.
Already this year League 1 outfit Keighley Cougars were put into special measures for failing to pay staff and players’ salaries. They were docked 12 points and now have new owners in the form of a group led by former chairman Mick O’Neill.
A decade ago, in mid-December 2009, Keighley went into administration after racking up a tax debut of £183,000. History continues to repeat itself ad nauseum.
Since 2010 more than 16 clubs across Super League, the Championship and League 1 have incurred financial strife. In September that year Oldham Roughyeds were hit with a winding-up petition brought by HM Revenue and Customs. Oldham been blighted by money problems since 2006.
After going into administration in November 2010, 10 months later Super League club the Crusaders were officially wound up. In July of that year they withdraw their application to continue in the top flight, with Crusaders boss Rod Findlay stating: “This has not been an easy decision. But after a lengthy and exhaustive examination of the club’s finances, our view is that Crusaders is not sustainable as a Super League club at this stage.”
Wakefield are currently in Super League despite going into administration in February 2011 after failing to pay more than £300,000 in taxes. Eventually Trinity were taken over by businessman Michael Carter. Under Carter’s astute leadership, Wakefield remain in Super League and have been punching above their weight regularly.
They remain a shining light as an example of a club ran efficiently and not spending what they do not have. Sadly, the Wakefield model is an extreme rarity.
In August 2012 new club the Northampton Rebels pulled out of entering the third tier without playing a single game. Chairman David Cardoza said at the time: “We didn’t want to launch something that had no chance of success and was not going to be competitive. It was always of paramount importance to us that the rugby league side didn’t impact on the football club.”
In December 2013 Super League outfit London Broncos almost went into administration. They were eventually rescued by current owner David Hughes.
Another Super League side in Salford were almost finished over unpaid taxes and failing to play players at the end of 2012. The Red Devils were then bought by Marwan Koukash and had five rocky years under the Palestinian’s control. Salford are still competing in Super League, but doubts remain over their long-term viability.
The York City Knights almost folded in 2016. At the end of that year Jon Flatman took over the club from John Guildford, and York has thankfully been on an upward trajectory since then.
Currently known as West Wales Raiders, and playing in League 1, the club in South Wales has always struggled for life. After several rebrands, and struggling to pay theie bills, the South Wales Ironmen were taken over, moved and rebranded once more, this time to become the Raiders, in 2017.
Players at Halifax were forced to take a pay cut at the start of 2017 after missing out on a top four finish the season before. In the same year Whitehaven only just avoided being wound up after settling an undisclosed tax bill.
It was the second time in a six-month spell that the club had been brought before court over its tax problems. The following year Whitehaven faced more money problems.
Neighbours Workington Town have faced similar issues. In 2016 a crowd-funding initiative was launched to help the club continue on.
The list goes on and on and on and on.
Swinton have also suffered severe financial pain, as recently as less than two years ago. They also took to crowd-funding, and a new ownership group took on the club at the end of 2017. Sheffield are a fellow Championship club that has had its existence threatened through financial strains.
Another club that experienced the ‘boom and bust’ dream of getting into, and dropping out of Super League, was Leigh Centurions. Owner Derek Beaumont spent big to get them into the top flight in 2017. But they were relegated after the Million Pound Game and sent back to the Championship for the 2018 campaign.
Beaumont once again spent big on getting into the top four and pushing for promotion, but after a horrendous start to the season it all went to pot when they failed to snare a top four spot. Beaumont looked to offload the club and there were serious fears that Leigh would go under. The Centurions remain in competition today, but as a part-time operation with a much more modest and reasonable business model.
What can we learn from all these examples, and what is the common theme? Three conclusions come to mind.
One, there is simply not enough money in British rugby league to keep 37 professional clubs afloat. There is not enough fans to support 37 clubs, let alone enough central funding to adequately provide for them.
Outside Super League, and inside Super League for some, attendances are under attack. Margins are thin and getting thinner. With time communities have changed and many clubs are not as influential or closely linked with their local areas as they have been in the past.
Two, is that history, heritage and past success is great but it doesn’t pay the bills. Bradford and Widnes have shown that. You cannot be hamstrung by the past, you have to look forward and evolve. If you don’t change with the times then you will be left behind.
Three, there is little scrutiny or governance of the people allowed to buy and run rugby league clubs in the UK. Scratch little, and replace it with ‘none’. Bernie Madoff, Charles Ponzi, Christopher Skase and Jordan Belfort, the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, would all get the green light from the RFL.
This sport loves to hail and praise false messiahs. Prude financial planning and management is not sexy.
And that takes us full circle back to Widnes.
“There’s something rotten in the county of Cheshire”, Shakespeare could have wrote.
From club champions of the world, beating a star-studded Canberra Raiders in 1989, to going bust in 2019. The demise of the Vikings left many people angry, sad, shocked and upset. But unfortunately it should come as no surprise.
Widnes’ own history after that magical triumph at Old Trafford saw the club mired in financial problems in the early 1990s. Star players like Martin Offiah were sold to balance the books. Then in 2007 the Vikings went into administration after failing to achieve promotion back into Super League.
Steve O’Connor took over the club and has owned it for the past 12 years. His rollercoaster reign has seen Widnes back into Super League, hold their own for a number of years under the canny coaching of Denis Betts, even reaching the finals in 2014, before the decline of the past few seasons and the eventual relegation at the end of 2018.
However, a key moment came in September 2012 when O’Connor appointed James Rule as the club’s CEO. Rule had of course been banned for two years for his role in trying to cover-up a drug scandal while at Hull FC. But the RFL did not object to his appointment and Rule was allowed back into the sport without completing the full suspension.
It was a curious decision then that seems almost criminal now.
Under Rule Widnes certainly had their good times, particularly from 2014 to 2016. The club’s academy was a beacon of light, with many impressive players produced. But the sale of key playmaker Kevin Brown to Warrington at the end of 2016 sparked the beginning of the end.
Brown was never adequately replaced and the six figures received from the Wolves for the transfer was never funnelled into the recruitment budget of Betts.
Results went south over the next two seasons.
My own interaction with Rule over the years has been minimal. The chief executive steered clear of media interaction with a lot of journalists in the game. He appeared extremely wary of being quizzed about the club and the direction it was headed at all. He seemed a law unto himself.
The alienation of the media was combined with growing alienation of the Widnes fans. Many were opposed to Rule and his methods, as well as the seemingly lack of ambition. Apathy among the supporter base grew and grew over the past few years. They wanted transparency and honesty, but were constantly brushed off.
This, along with declining on-field results, saw home crowds dip. In 2018 they averaged 4,897 fans per game, the second-lowest in Super League, which was down from 5,767 in 2017. In 2013 they had averaged 6,015.
In April last year Rule remarkably told League Express that Widnes had: “Cleared all of our historic debt, which was considerable, and we’re now at a break-even financial position”. Rule went on to blame the poor on-field results down to injuries.
His reluctance to do interviews meant even less accountability. With O’Connor relocating to live in Australia, the running of Widnes was left to Rule and his directors in the form of Brian O’Connor, Steve’s brother, and Roddy Snedden.
If the Vikings were at a ‘break-even financial position’ last April, as Rule claims, then careless financial mismanagement has seen them slip into administration a mere 10 months later. Some claim that big salaries paid to Rule and other directors, in the form of reportedly at least six figures a year, have crippled the club. Though not illegal, this outlay is certainly morally questionable.
Administrator Peter O’Hara will publish his report on Widnes in a few months time. Answers may, and the key point there is may, come then.
But the decision to assemble a high-costing squad for 2019, complete with big-name and expensive foreign players such as Krisnan Inu and Anthony Gelling, despite losing revenues after relegation was confirmed seems like madness. As does the decision to remain a full-time operation in the Championship.
How Rule and the board expected to cover a wage bill reported at £130,000 a month remains unclear. Keeping wages and costs down in 2019, especially when promotion is unlikely when pitted against a massively cashed-up Toronto Wolfpack, would have been the sound, sane play. But they did not.
In the end it is the fans of Widnes, the diehards who love the club, who have lost the most. Them and the staff and players who have been made redundant this past fortnight. It is the Chemics faithful who have bandied together to ensure the club still exists.
If 144-year-old Widnes, founded way back in 1875, is to go on for another 144 years then things have to change. Not just the people in charge of the club, those who make decisions on wages and marketing and recruitment, but also in terms of the wider structure and governance of the sport.
What also needs to change is the role that supporters play in their clubs. Not just to turn up to games, to buy shirts, season tickets, programs and the like, but to be active participants. To have representation on their boards and a say on the decisions that make or break their clubs. To use their spending power more wisely.
Rugby league does not have the tankers full of endless cash to rely on that English football enjoys. There is no promotion to the Premier League promising hundreds of millions pounds, or massive parachute payments out of it, that can be their saviour.
Rugby league clubs have to be run properly, professionally and mostly, meagerly. They also have to be run in conjunction, as much as possible, with the fans that are their lifeblood. That has to be the way forward.
Oldham, a club that is no stranger to financial bother, have got the message. A post on their website last week, titled ‘Fan’s support crucial in tackling the game’s problems’, implored how Roughyeds supporters could assist off the field.
The past nine years have been a lowpoint for financial pain in rugby league. The only way to avoid more in the future is to learn from the past.
So far there is little proof that the lessons are being heeded.
