Crusaders to Wrexham?

[East Coast Tiger]

It seems as though this club is not the South Wales Thunder, which has had a few games this season, effectively as a winter merit team.

But with this club and hopefully the survival of the Cru in SL, preferably in South Wales, there will be real depth to the game in Wales. The best players have a route to SL via school and junior football, the local amateur scene (the Welsh Conference, Student RL and Thunder), the Crusaders Academy sides and the new semi-pro club.

 

[Mr_Ugly]

This won't help the Crusaders: http://news.smh.com.au/rugby-league...e-fine-over-aussie-imports-20091201-k1o5.html

Crusaders face fine over Aussie imports
December 1, 2009
AFP
Ailing Super League club Celtic Crusaders could face a fine of up to $A108,500 because of visa irregularities which led to several of their Australian imports being deported and banned from the country for 10 years.
The United Kingdom Borders Agency (UKBA) stopped short of issuing criminal charges against the Wales-based club but made it clear on Monday that they had been irresponsible in not checking the eligibility of the six Australian players.
Jace van Dijk, Tony Duggan, Damien Quinn, Josh Hannay, Darren Mapp and Mark Dalle Cort were all found to have breached the conditions for their UK entry in a previous year and had their visas revoked.
"Having considered all the circumstances of this case, it was not considered appropriate to pursue a criminal prosecution against Crusaders Rugby League Club," said UKBA in Wales and the South West regional director Jane Farleigh.
"However, the club has been served with a civil penalty notice for employing six illegal workers.
"The employers now face a fine of up to STG60,000 ($A108,500) unless they can prove to the agency that they carried out legally-required checks before employing workers from outside Europe.
"Businesses have a legal responsibility to carry out the correct checks and the consequences are severe for those who do not.
"The players involved have left the country and are now prohibited from working in the UK."
The Rugby Football League, the sport's governing body, is to launch its own probe into the affair.
RFL boss Nigel Wood said: "We needed confirmation from the UKBA they had concluded their inquiries.
"That has only just been received so we are at liberty now to commence any rugby league specific inquiry, which we will be doing."
The Crusaders had a disastrous Super League campaign finishing bottom of the table recording just three wins in 27 matches and garnering just six points, scoring 357 points and conceding a massive 874.

© 2009 AFP

 

[East Coast Tiger]

This won't help the Crusaders: http://news.smh.com.au/rugby-league...e-fine-over-aussie-imports-20091201-k1o5.html

Crusaders face fine over Aussie imports
December 1, 2009
AFP
Ailing Super League club Celtic Crusaders could face a fine of up to $A108,500 because of visa irregularities which led to several of their Australian imports being deported and banned from the country for 10 years.
The United Kingdom Borders Agency (UKBA) stopped short of issuing criminal charges against the Wales-based club but made it clear on Monday that they had been irresponsible in not checking the eligibility of the six Australian players.
Jace van Dijk, Tony Duggan, Damien Quinn, Josh Hannay, Darren Mapp and Mark Dalle Cort were all found to have breached the conditions for their UK entry in a previous year and had their visas revoked.
"Having considered all the circumstances of this case, it was not considered appropriate to pursue a criminal prosecution against Crusaders Rugby League Club," said UKBA in Wales and the South West regional director Jane Farleigh.
"However, the club has been served with a civil penalty notice for employing six illegal workers.
"The employers now face a fine of up to STG60,000 ($A108,500) unless they can prove to the agency that they carried out legally-required checks before employing workers from outside Europe.
"Businesses have a legal responsibility to carry out the correct checks and the consequences are severe for those who do not.
"The players involved have left the country and are now prohibited from working in the UK."
The Rugby Football League, the sport's governing body, is to launch its own probe into the affair.
RFL boss Nigel Wood said: "We needed confirmation from the UKBA they had concluded their inquiries.
"That has only just been received so we are at liberty now to commence any rugby league specific inquiry, which we will be doing."
The Crusaders had a disastrous Super League campaign finishing bottom of the table recording just three wins in 27 matches and garnering just six points, scoring 357 points and conceding a massive 874.

© 2009 AFP

The club is in debt by about 850,000 sterling so an extra 60k won't matter too much. Samuels wants a buyer to take the club and the debt, which is a big ask, but if someone is willing the extra cost of the fine, which the club may well have already bargained for, might not effect the deal.

 

[Jankuloski]

There might be some consollation in the fact that they have 3 potential backers - competition is always good. I hope...

 

[S.S.T.I.D]

It looks like we should know soon as to whether or not there will be a team based in South Wales in 2010.

http://www.rugbyleague.com/rugby-league-news/837

 

[gatesheadthunder]

The crusaders should never have had a SL franchise in the first place, the WRU got rid of the union team (celtic warriors) in bridgend because the numbers didnt work. How did anyone expect a league team to succeed? A clear case of expansion for expasions sake.
It's sad but at the moment it looks like the crusaders are dying a slow death. Hopefully the youth development work can be salvaged but i doubt it, most of these young welsh boys will end up in union.

 

[Sam_the_man]

The Crusaders signed Michael Witt today just by the by.

 

[bowes]

Heard some worrying news now. There have been two bids for a C1 side in Wales. One is from Bridgend, independently backed by a consortium and in the area where Welsh RL tends to be biggest. The other is from Neath and are a feeder club to Crusaders (meaning two clubs reliant on one backer), in a town without RL and competing with the Ospreys RU.

The rumours are that unsurprisingly the clowns at the RFL favour the latter appalling option. I wouldn't object to both being let in (aside from some concerns over playing standard), but Bridgend must be let in

 

[S.S.T.I.D]

Heard some worrying news now. There have been two bids for a C1 side in Wales. One is from Bridgend, independently backed by a consortium and in the area where Welsh RL tends to be biggest. The other is from Neath and are a feeder club to Crusaders (meaning two clubs reliant on one backer), in a town without RL and competing with the Ospreys RU.

The rumours are that unsurprisingly the clowns at the RFL favour the latter appalling option. I wouldn't object to both being let in (aside from some concerns over playing standard), but Bridgend must be let in

Reading another forum that does seem to be the case. Is it official yet though?

This entire fiasco has been gut-wrenching. Why are the RFL in favour of Neath? Geographically it looks as far from Wrexham as Bridgend is.

 

[cymrurl]

The one thing that does worry me about all this is that the Crusaders had started to build up a fan base in South Wales and now are throwing it all away (perhaps not because they want to) to go to North Wales where they have to start again.

 

[morgan123]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/celtic_crusaders/8387114.stm

It has today been admitted that the move to Wrexham is motivated purely by the desire to help Wrexham Football Club out of their dire financial situation.

Reading between the lines it seems they plan to take the Sky money and the gate receipts, run the club cheaply at the bottom of the table and then drop them after a couple of years.

Or is that overly cynical? It just doesn't seem like the new owners have any interest in developing the Crusaders or the know how to do it anyway.

 

[Jankuloski]

It is a posibility.. Other posibility is that because they're in trouble they offer good conditions to the Crusaders to play there.

We'll see what happens once the season is on. One thing is for sure - they have to step up on the scoreboard if they are to survive.

 

[cymrurl]

The Racecourse is a half decent ground and the English teams will probably find travel easier and cheaper (no toll costs to get into Wales ) and in the absence of a successful Wrexham FC team then maybe the fans will turn to the Crusaders RL team. Not sure I see that happening though, but if Wrexham can get back into the football league then that could help. It will be an interesting season for the Crusaders, with the Aussie player scandal behind them and Brian Noble in charge we can only keep our fingers crossed.

 

[kiwileaguefan]

Hmmm i am a bit concerned about this, i believe they are banking on all the travelling fans to put money in the bank.

They only averaged 3,359 for the soccer this year at the race course.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Wrexham FC needs the Cru to get good crowds so there's not much point in them losing in SL. Therefore they need to buy players and win games, not run the club on the cheap and finish bottom.

 

[Evil Homer]

More importantly Geoff Moss needs year-round sport at the Racecourse Ground, seeing as it was quite an expensive stadium and Wrexham FC do not get great attendances.

 

[kiwileaguefan]

From the Crusaders forum:

"We sold 673 tickets yesterday (inc. over 200 Wrexham/Wimbledon tickets), the Mold Road is now sold out, only a few left in the Yale, it's looking like a complete sell-out with only the Lower Eric Roberts tickets available in the club shop on the Friday." http://s1.images.nospam22.com/smiley.gif

 

[Jankuloski]

Season tickets, or season openers?

 

[JasonE]

Fantastic news in the last few days with the game being close to a 10k crowd, if they can get a great atmosphere and a super performance from the Cru, that would be awesome.

 

[kiwileaguefan]

Some more info off the crusaders forum from Ian Golden:

As for Friday, I think it'll be over 8,000 at least, perhaps a full house. "Hundreds" of tickets were sold every day last week. There's already more tickets gone now than people that attended the highly promoted Hull FC game. The main difference for me though seems to be the outside support that the club is getting. The Wrexham council couldn't be more helpful. Their press officer is assisting and has written a couple of the articles that are on our site! They have put posters and banners up everywhere and the whole town knows that the Crusaders are coming. This is the complete opposite to the Bridgend council who only marketed the internationals and I quote "didn't see Super League as an event!"
The other difference is media. The local radio and newspapers are right behind us. We're getting back pages with alarming regularity and are regularly on the sports news on radio stations. Down here, the radio was okay but they had other priorities and as Gareth has said before, the newspapers were not brilliant. The Gazette was okay at the start but that's a weekly paper. The coverage suffered from Bridgend not having a daily paper which is really unfortunate.
A club like ours needs the support of the community and that's what it seems to be getting in Wrexham which is great to see. On the other side of things, I've also heard that the Neath Port Talbot Council are going to get right behind the Scorpions and we've already lined up a couple of local radio stations who will be right behind us there too.