Hull KR furlough majority of players and staff

Drew Darbyshire

Hull KR owner Neil Hudgell has confirmed the club has furloughed the majority of its players and staff due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The coronavirus job retention scheme has been brought in by the government in order to allow employers to place their employees on a temporary leave of absence, with 80% or up to £2,500 of their wages covered by the government.

Hudgell said: “Obviously we have no revenues coming in, no match day revenues, no commercial revenues, and we obviously are looking in a very difficult position with the concerts which were due to start being held at the beginning of June.

“We’ve seen all sorts of major events cancelled in that sort of period and that’s a serious amount of money that was calculated into our cash flow.

“We face huge amounts of uncertainty and it is a real worrying concern which is reflected across the game. In a strange way I suppose there’s a level of comfort in that everybody is in the same boat, so hopefully that will reflect on how we all deal with each other.

“On and off the field we are in a state of pause. Everybody is more or less stood down apart from one or two key people who are still battling on until we have clearer picture of what is happening in the outside world.

“We are just waiting to understand how the next few months are going to shape up. It is a real great time of uncertainty, as it is in the outside world generally.”

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