Quote Sandal Cat="Sandal Cat"I believe we could stay at Belle Vue but notwithstanding the mentioned safety issues Super League has imposed minimum standards which Belle Vue fails to meet on a number of counts such as capacity, seats, floodlights just to mention a few. Failing to meet these standards results in massive financial penalties which means a big reduction in funding.
We already operate on a much reduced budget compared to most if not all other SL clubs so a massive reduction in central funding would mean that we would be unable to compete in SL with the inevitable consequences.'"
According to MC the financial penalty would be betwwen 30k and 100k, although not all that is down to the ground alone. Given the highly likely drop off in attendances, matchday income and sponsorship would likely exceed that then i'm not sure i can see the basis for moving for that alone.
Yes BV would take money to be spent to bring it up to standard and this would be more than at BV but in a radio interview last week MC stated words to the effect 'you don't mind spending money on something you own, but not when you don't. Surely then this would rule out Dewsbury as we wouldn't own that either and theirs no way they are going to sell us their only asset.
According to the league express we have ruled out Featherstone without any real negotiation so we are leaving the Wakefield area. I guess this is to make the impact of leaving BV on the council and developer greater. Personally i think it gives a bigger stick to beat us with but whichever way you feel is best staying within WMDC was bever going to be an option.
So for me there is only two courses of action that make MC's stance make sense. Firstly it's pure brinkmanship in the hope that it along with the threat of legal action shocks the other parties into action. Secondly is that we move to a ground that is already superleague standard so we get full funding for minimal outlay. We then fight in couty ftom there. Should we also get favourable rent terms even better, so i would think moving to somewhere like Oakwell would be unlikely. They would also be concerned about their pitch, see the Wigan and Hull shenanigans recently. We are apparently talking to several clubs. Given the governing body own the lease on a ground outside superleague i wouldn't ve surprised if that is the current favourite.