SportBusiness.com

Clubs improve fortunes

The finance director of the English Rugby Football League (RFL) has praised the management of clubs after Featherstone Rovers emerged from a period of administration.

The move now means no RFL clubs are currently in administration.
Throughout the last decade a number of professional clubs have been forced to seek the security of administration during periods of financial strife but, following the sport's major restructuring, they have been able to stabilise their affairs and return to normal trading conditions.
The Rugby Football League are able to assist their member clubs develop the commercial viability of their businesses by offering the services of the club support unit which is able to offer advice on such matters as lottery development, securing grant aid and marketing development.
Said Nigel Wood, financial director of the RFL: “It is probably unique in the recent history of our sport for none of our clubs to be in administration and to have achieved such a pleasing situation is a tribute to the hard work of many unsung heroes at the clubs.
"That said we still have much work to do by way of education and sharing best practice to reduce some of the remaining isolated examples of weak financial performance to assist the sport in achieving its desired objective of collective solvency."