New Stadium Announcement

Gerrard was only ever interested in the stadium. He made that clear in one of his statements. I’m f he didn’t get the stadium he was never going to invest in the club!

You keep saying the club never backed his bid. How do you know this? What did you expect them to do, dance up and down with placards declaring their undying love for Gerrard,

Simply because pretty much every post slags the board off in some way of another!

Lets focus on the outcome of Tuesday rather than the Board, once that is out of the way a plan can be put in place. I'd say the community work the club has done via the Foundation is one of the reasons we are not starring down at a move to Moor Lane. We just need impetus on the commercial side, there was only 4,000 at Hudds last night, we get more than that most games.

Not sure the Club have 'missed the boat' Now the Council have stated their intentions its probably the best time to launch the community route especially as the IMG criteria sets out what Clubs should be aiming for. I suspect what will hold us back is the lack of prople through the gates which was why the previous benefactors gave up after losing a fortune. But we've had a bit of success since then and are playing great Rugby so reasons to be positive if we all unite behind it.

Good listen the podcast with Paul King on it, the takeaways:

He wants Salford to Go Big in order to succeed rather than just survive.
The Community Benefit Scheme (CBS) will launch in April – Paul Dennett and Andy Burnham will be involved - this has a large potential income stream investing in the club.
Our Club has great relationship with Sale Sharks and their Board.
As we all know the club are working with SCC.
Paul is always open to working with a Benefactor - no mention of Gerrard.

Cannot fault the guy, especially in stepping up the past 3-4 years after his own challenges. I'll be buying some CBS shares for sure.

I suspect they are clutching at straws. There are examples of community stadiums working that they could draw on and I'm sure there is a business plan. As far as I know Sale, as primary tenants, will be taking on costs such as maintenance. From what I understood the stadium generates enough at the moment to pay for itself but not pay off existing debt. The debt seems huge to me as I can't imagine the stadium cost that much to build so I'm guessing the lack of paying of the debt is due to not selling off the lots around the stadium for development. Besides all that, they could still opt to sell the stadium in the future to Sale and Salford FC.if the business plan didn't work. But, as I said, there are community stadiums that do work, so examples are out there. It's just been so poorly managed since launch.

I fear for Salford either way. We need the next TV deal to be better than the last one. It's a sad state of UK Sport across the board that we rely on TV money and benefactors. Football and RU are the biggest highlights of this. Many clubs run above their means due to a benefactor, as do SL clubs. Probably all the clubs except Saints, Leeds, and Wigan. It's not a sustainable model. RU clubs spend well above their means. RL clubs are following suit, the cap of £2.1m is obviously too high for clubs, if you removed benefactors propping them up.

I suspect the clubs share scheme is the mechanism to raise funds. What is more alarming here is the reports in the media about loans/cash.

According to documents it is ‘likely to go out of business in the short/medium term without any temporary liquidity support while it embarks on the preparation of a restructuring plan.’






As was stated yesterday if the club need to raise income have an honest discussion with Supporters Trust and the fans, we will all do what we can. Also, I accept that if there is no other way then we sell players. At the moment the speculation in the press is negative despite the fantastic efforts on the pitch. 

The lease on the stadium runs out in December this year, I have a feeling the stadium matters will run on for a good few months yet.