Don't get me wrong, I really don't want Saints to be in dire financial straits (one thing we can all agree on is that the Saints v Wigan derby is one of the best things in British sport, not just RL, the rivalry between the clubs is a big part of why we support our clubs). Obviously Saints aren't at the moment in a financial crisis despite another big loss, your directors (including I think McManus) are very generously supporting the club with their own cash and I've seen no signs they are not prepared to or can't keep that going as long as necessary, but it just isn't good for the game to have clubs being propped up in this way. Just because it used to happen at Wigan under Dave Whelan didn't make it right then, even though his support was also generous.



IL gets flak from Wigan fans for not waiving his chequebook around, but he's doing things I think in the best, long tem, interests of the club. We have to remember that RL isn't football, we can't assume that very wealthy people will step forward to bail out clubs, not even sides like Wigan or Saints will necessarily find a benefactor like IL or McManus - just look at Bradford, the dominant club in the early SL era, now reduced to financial ruin.



Hopefully Saints directors and management will put the club on a sustainable basis going forward, with a big improvement in this year's figures being the starting point when they are announced this time next year. It is worrying that the losses have widened this year, I would have thought that now things would be settling down and the club would be on an even keel, but we will just have to wait and see what happens.

I imagine Deano G will be on here soon talking about wigans unsustainable business that relies on trophies and selling your best players to break even?



If not then this thread he started almost looks like an ill thought out pop at Saints, which surely wasn't the purpose of it, it would be so out of character for him. . . .

I'll ignore the ad hominem part of your post.



I don't want to duck the question of Wigan's sustainability (though clearly this is a separate question from whether Saints is a sustainable business). You'll have to wait though, I haven't had the chance yet to read Wigan's accounts (or Saints' in any detail).

When I have I will let you have my thoughts in more detail.



Historically (and at the time I posted Wigan's latest accounts weren't available) Wigan has been run sustainably. If it isn't now being run sustainably then I would be worried. Looking at the headline info as reported, it doesn't look great. If Wigan's financial performance is deterioriating then I would be critical of that. Having said this, the headline info for Wigan doesn't look anywhere near as bad as headline results at Saints, I think a degree of perspective is required...!!! A £2.4m loss on turnover of £5.4m is, on the face of it, a very poor result compared with what is being reported about Wigan's position.



I don't think many, if any, RL clubs are particularly well run as businesses. Wigan's revenue is low for a club with such a big supporter base and profit and I have pointed this out before on this board (just because things were sustainable didn't mean there wasn't room for improvement!). If you had read my posts on this you would have seen that I am sceptical about the the deal with the stadium company, Wigan's turnover looks too low for us to be getting all the match day revenue. On the plus side though Wigan has a low cost base because it doesn't need to pay to maintain and update the stadium.



Saints seem to have high costs and a similar sized turnover to Wigan at the moment. Your directors obviously believe that this will be rectified in the next few years, but on the face of it this looks a big task (I'll comment more when I've had the chance to read the accounts). Hopefully costs can be brought down and revenue increased, though if your primary source of new revenue is hospitality/conferencing from my experience this is not a high margin business area so you would need to do a very substantial amount of business there to get the net contribution needed to meet losses elsewhere at the club. The new TV deal will help to some extent, but if in 2 or 3 years time Saints were to get to a point where it was only losing say 300k a year that would be an impressive achievement from where it is now.



As long as the Saints board are able and willing to continue backing the club (or if Wigan is not being run sustainably but is able to drawn on IL's financial support) it could be said that this doesn't matter, but tell that to the fans of the club that dominated the early years of SL. Wigan and Saints are not so special that what happened to Bradford couldn't happen to our clubs.

You need to go away and read Saints accounts in some detail. The major bulk of the debts accrued (11m/16m) are owed to Mike Coleman. In 2018 either Saints will clear it all, or he can take a 62% stake in the company. This isn't Saints revenue struggling, this is a handing over of the reigns...

I will do, but you're talking here about the creditors of the club not whether the club is being run consistently at a profit.



If what you're saying is correct then there may be a change of ownership at the club in 2018, but that is a different question from whether its revenue exceeds its costs each year. Good to hear though that there is someone waiting in the wings (presumably with cash available to help the club) who is ready to step in.



We don't have that at Wigan (as far as I am aware), though the financial position is much better in both trading terms and in terms of the amount of debt owed to shareholders (the debt of the Wigan club to IL is a fraction of the debt owed to Saints directors).



At the risk of going off topic and derailing a thread I started... what would be the reaction of Saints fans to a takeover by Mike Coleman?

As has been said, Most of Saints costs will still extraordinarily come from the stadium, the cladding, the catering etc. All these are ironed out very easily with a few extra mill borrowed

it's like paying off a mortgage in a couple of years, the numbers take a major hit while you do but your all the better for it after.



As for Coleman, I'm glad there's a succession plan in place. As sad as it will be for McManus to go, who is a club legend on equal standing of the likes of KC, I trust his judgement on his successor - and I'd imagine he'll stay on for life in some capacity. As for Coleman, he certainly has the money, what he does with it only time will tell...