BBC tonight 7 30 Inside Out has its results of an investigation into the finances of clubs & the current viability of rugby league. There is also an article about this on BBC sport rugby league page .

brilliant.... more advertising for our game ........

a full half an hour program devoted to Super league and its clubs being on average THREE Million pounds in debt. its nothing but scaremongering and its just in vogue because of the recent plights of Bradford and Salford.

yes some clubs need to get their house in order, and we were guilty of it in the past, but look at the Premier league table of debt ridden clubs starting with united at 300million arguably they can afford/(manage) it given their revenues, but clubs like Fulham almost 200 million in debt and even more worrying is Everton £45 million in debt with no rich backer to help them out.......

it highlights the shambles that is the RFL...yes they cant control club's spending stupid money on the likes of the willie masons and luke pattens of the world.... but if they cant arrange suitable finances for the League in terms of sponsorship its hardly setting a great example.....

its embarrassing and worrying more than "Staring into the Abyss" as I think the BBC report says.......

but there's no such thing as bad publicity I think someone said.

Is this on nationally?

Don't know tbh but maybe at 3 50 am Tuesday like the SL show usually is !

It certainly isn't a level playing field when a club like Bradford can be brought to its knees for half a million whereas Rangers can get to £50 million before the plug is pulled. Re. United & Fulham , i bet the only people who can't sleep at night are their creditors.

They were discussing it this morning on 5 Live. There was someone from Leeds speaking a lot of sense about how it's great that once again the only time RL gets mentioned on the radio is when it is something negative. I wonder how many RU clubs are in the red?!

The thing that's wound me up about this is the shoddy journalism/self-promotion that is on show. The BBC presumably have had this guy from Hallam look into the finances, and then run the story on their website on the morning the programme will air (it's only on locally, in the North I believe, and the RL bit will only be one element of it, if the pevious format of Inside Out is followed - it's a local issues based 'magazine' type programme, so it might be 10 minutes max on this story).

However, to gain attention, they have gone with this headline grabbing strapline that "Using a term like 'Rugby League is staring at the financial abyss' is not too harsh a thing to say", attributing this to a "Sports finance expert". One of two things will have happened - either they phrased a question of "Is rugby league staring into the financial abyss", to which he has replied "That's not too harsh a thing to say", or he has volunteered this phrase as written during the course of an interview with him. The latter is unlikely (and he's an idiot, rather than a 'sports finance expert', if he did), whilst the former is clear a loaded question that Mr Wilson seems to have handled naively.

Regardless of the state of the sports finances, to use emotive language like this, to a largely uneducated (in financial terms) audience, is shockly reporting IMHO. It's aso a meangingless phrase, designed to generate publicity, but doesn't actually tell you anything. The RFL should be kicking the crap out of the BBC (one of their broadcast partners) for allowed this story to run in this fashion.

The story itself is a very valid one to run I feel. Recent issues might mean this is 'in vogue', but handled correctly, it could be a matter that is 'in the public interest' to look at. However, sports finance is a very complicated issue, and needs to be dealt with in a way that treats is as such - i.e. not the way this has been done.

I'll await the full story tonight, before saying too much about the actual content, but I am already expecting this to be a 'glass half full' story.

I am in the London area schedule, and it doesn't seem to feature. We have 'councils raising money from fines', 'London ending up in private hands' and Roy Hudd's birthday. Unfortunately I re-arrange my sock drawer on a Monday night so will miss it.

Not in the South, but probably wouldn't be of interest to many people sadly.

Agree with other posters that this 'story' is just sensationalistic journalism, and obviously timed to cause maximum grief

You sure, showing as a program about nuclear power on BBC North west on sky..

Only has a 5 - 10 min slot in said programme. Union clubs are in a far worst state.

cheers