Who is going to make sure Featherstone’s players get what they are owed?

The scramble to save Featherstone Rovers has begun. With confirmation the club have entered administration and the RFL setting out their strict and short deadlines for expressions of interest, they are now in a race against time to make the Championship start line in a month’s time.

It will be a chaotic few weeks for one of rugby league’s grand old clubs. Assuming there are new owners, there will be creditors who need paying – but they will not get everything they are owed. Sporting sanctions will likely head the way of Featherstone, too, in the way of a points deduction: immaterial in the grand scheme of things given the restructure of the competition.

But the Rugby Football League have a pivotal and crucial role to play here. Among the many creditors of Featherstone are the most important stakeholders of all: their playing squad.

Featherstone’s 2025 squad have gone three months without pay: for September, October and November, they were not paid what they were owed – a story revealed by Love Rugby League earlier this year.

It is understood that tens of thousands of pounds remain owed to the squad. Many of them have moved on for 2026, but some are still considering staying in a new-look regime, if one can be found that would enable the Championship side to compete.

But this is not about what the players will be owed in the future. This is about making sure the first-team squad that were left without pay, scrambling to pay their mortgages and worrying about their financial health for weeks on end, get what they are rightfully and deservedly are due.

How this works is that providing new owners are found, they will settle all debts on a reduced scale. It may be 10p for every pound owed, it may be 20p, it may be more. But it will almost certainly not be everything.

However, this is where the RFL must step in and ensure the playing squad are not part of any deal and that there is protection put in place to recoup their unpaid salaries. After all, this is a governing body that prides itself on player welfare.

The governing body has an insolvency policy that was implemented around the time of the Covid-19 pandemic that covers financial issues just like this one: clubs going into administration. In it, there are incentives for any new owners of clubs that mean sporting sanctions such as points deductions are reduced in the event of creditors being paid in full.

But in reality, what is the incentive for any new ownership group to do that? There is no relegation in the Championship, so Featherstone could be deducted 100 points, and it would mean nothing.

It also discusses how conditions of participation after a change of ownership may be reliant on debts being settled in full, but the word may does a lot of heavy lifting. In short, it is by no means set in stone that any new owners of Featherstone Rovers have to pay the players what they are owed.

Love Rugby League has asked the RFL in recent days whether they intend to ensure players recoup their unpaid wages. There has been no response.

And that is a problem for the game.

Without a players union – a problem as old as time for British rugby league – there is no protection for a group of players who are facing immense financial hardship. Some have had to take reduced deals just to ensure they get paid something, anything, for 2026.

We don’t know what the players are going through, and how difficult these times are without thousands of pounds. Hopefully, we will never have to find out.

But at the very least, the RFL have to determine that Featherstone’s 2025 squad get what they are owed. Not some of it: all of it. They have considered legal advice, but are now helpless given how Rovers are in administration.

Because the players are the lifeblood of rugby league. Without them, this sport is nothing.

So can the governing body do the right thing and dictate to any new owners those rugby debts must be settled? We’re about to find out.

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