Today, the funeral bell tolled for Salford Red Devils, at least in its current form. It had had four stays of execution over the past few months, but today the hangman finally had his way and sprang the trap door on more than 150 years of history and cast this storied club, and its fans, into the abyss.

As things currently stand, there are a number of interested parties in helping the team rise from the ashes (three of which have been detailed by the Salford fan group The 1873 on their Facebook page). It is to be hoped that the Red Devils (or whatever nom de plume they operate under from here) make it to the starting point in January, but that is a big ask in itself, with just six weeks in which to appoint a coaching team, and put together a side that can at the very least compete.

I’ve attempted to write a piece about the situation at Salford a number of times over the past few months, but never got around to finishing any. Some of this was simply because of how fast the saga moved at times, anything I did publish would have been out-of-date the next week, or even the next day! Now, however, with this line in the sand now drawn by the court’s decision, I feel it’s a good time to outline what has happened, and what may be to come for the beleaguered team, and its supporters.

Timeline of events:

• November 2024: The club requests an advance from its central distribution of £500,000.
• January 2025: The RFL impose a sustainability cap on the team, restricting their team selection to a total salary cost of £1.2m
• February 2025: A consortium, fronted by Swiss businessman Dario Berta, take over the ailing club. The change of ownership was not ratified in time to lift the cap for their first game of the season against St Helens. They field a reserve side and are promptly beaten 82-0.
• March 2025: A further advance of £150,000 is given to the club to pay player wages. The exodus of players begins in earnest when Marc Sneyd leaves for Warrington. The month also sees the sustainability cap lifted, and reinstated, following further financial peril.
• April 2025: Kallum Watkins joins Leeds Rhinos, eventually the first team are frittered away to almost nothing, with the team having no more than six contracted players by the end of the season.
• May 2025: Chris Irwin, appointed as CEO as part of the consortium’s takeover, resigns from his post after just three months. Salford City Council also pull out of talks to sell the stadium to the club’s new “owners”.
• August 2025: Seven loan players have to be signed just to fulfill their fixture against Hull FC. They lost 80-6. The ownership group insist that the club will not fold. Amidst the chaos, Claire Bradbury quits the club. She alleges that the ownership group told her to ‘sleep with someone at the RFL’ to help the club.
• September 2025: Salford’s on-field season comes to an end. They have managed just three wins all season with a revolving cast of players playing for the club, resulting in some shirt numbers going into the 80s.
• October 2025: Salford’s relegation from the Super League is confirmed. They hadn’t even applied to remain part of the competition.
• November 2025: The winding-up case against the club (brought by the HMRC) is adjourned for a fourth time. Not for the first time this season, the “owners” promise that the funds to keep the club afloat are coming. No-one believes them.
• December 2025: The Salford Red Devils are formally wound up by the courts and liquidation proceedings begin. The RFL revoke the clubs membership, but hope a new club can be formed to take its place.

The above timeline is a nowhere near exhaustive account of a gruelling twelve-month period for everyone involved with the Red Devils¹. It doesn’t mention, for instance, having to sell a player just to pay a laundry bill, as was alleged at one point in the back end of the season. It’s safe to say that everything about the consortium that took over Salford in February was farcical, and that is putting things very mildly.

Yet, out of this disaster for the fans, comes shoots of hope. As mentioned earlier, there is interest from a number of people to revive the club, although it remains to be seen under what guise, and the strength in unity shown by the fans of the Red Devils (typified by The 1873) has been one of the highlights of the season. The passion they showed in not only standing up to the gaggle of cowboys who picked apart their club, but also in supporting Paul Rowley and the threadbare squad he had, was nothing less than awe-inspiring.

The question remains, then, where do they go from here? Well, it’s to be hoped that step one is building a new club from the ashes of the old one. Will it have the same name? The precedent is there; after all, when Bradford Bulls were liquidated, they retained their bovine image, but these are questions that will be settled in time and are secondary to the big question of whether there will even be a team in (or around) Salford to compete next season.

The RFL certainly hope so. In a brief statement released after the judgement today, the governing body said: “The RFL Board will meet tomorrow, following which, detail on the process to new club ownership will be advised.” I don’t know about you, but that certainly sounds to me like they plan on having a new Salford team in the Championship. The 1873 also seem optimistic that their team will rise again sooner than we think, if their statements are anything to go by.

If we want an indication of how a rebirth might go, we should look no further than the aforementioned Bradford Bulls, who were liquidated in 2017, have recently returned to the Super League after steadily rebuilding themselves in the Championship, and they had to start back at the very bottom to get there. They might be a long way off their glory days of the early 2000s, but as it stands, they serve as a good example for any fledgling Salford side to follow in the coming years.

Before I wrap this up, I’d like to address the elephant in the room regarding the relatively recent history between Salford and my club, Hull KR. There are many Robins who are finding it hard to sympathise with the Red Devils plight following the events of the 2016 Million Pound Game, which saw Salford survive in Super League at the expense of Hull KR. Not so much the game itself, to be clear, but more the conduct of those connected to the club after the fact. While I understand these points of view, I don’t share them, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the most egregious spectacle of the day was the-Salford owner Marwan Koukash parading a novelty cheque around the side of the pitch. Yes, this was a horrid sight, but those responsible for it have long departed the Red Devils (probably leaving a whole heap of their problems behind) so I find it hard to get mad at the current club for the actions of a former administration.

Then there was the actions of the fans on the day. Full disclosure now, I wasn’t at the game, as I was on holiday at the time, so I’m only going off what I’ve heard reported here, but I’m going to stick my neck out and say that the crowd trouble was probably six of one and half a dozen of the other. I know Rovers fans are no saints, we have our share of idiots (more than our fair share, it seems at times) as does every club, and if Salford fans were antagonising Rovers fans, then I can see why there was trouble, but I can also well imagine that our fans would have wound them up if the shoe was on the other foot, so I can’t be too mad at their fans either. They were happy their club weren’t relegated, at the end of the day. Any trouble that came after it was obviously appalling, but I can’t speak to the underlying causes.

At the end of the day, I just feel sorry for Salford’s fans, players, and staff. I don’t feel like gloating, because I know that every club is only one or two bad seasons away from becoming another Salford, and it has very nearly been my club on a number of occasions over the past thirty years, as people tend to forget. Like any other club, the Salford Red Devils were at the heart of the community, and that heart has been removed, with a transplant not guaranteed, and that’s the real heartbreak. Not to mention the poor image it gives the game at large, when a side who finished fourth in the Super League just a year ago can be reduced to nothing twelve months later.

Now, as always, I offer my sincerest best wishes to the fans, who have watched their club slowly and painfully killed, to the players, who at times didn’t know whether they could pay their bills, and to the staff, who no doubt poured their hearts and souls into the club, only for it to be torn apart in months by a parade of dodgy charlatans, armed with nothing but broken promises. I’m sure Salford will rise again, and I hope it is soon.

Written by Nathan Major (Site editor & Hull KR fan)

Source: https://www.rugby-league.com/article/64427/salford-red-devils—update

1. With thanks to Love Rugby League, whose graphic was very helpful in fixing dates to events. ↩︎