Salford owners urged to ‘tell the truth’ as bold invitation extended to explain plans

Salford Red Devils’ owners have been urged to ‘tell the truth’ about their intentions for the club: with Sky’s Brian Carney offering them an open invitation to share an update.

The Red Devils have been forced to cancel Sunday’s game with Wakefield Trinity over concerns surrounding player welfare. Salford would have likely had to field a team predominantly filled with academy players if it had gone ahead.

That decision came in a week when the club’s COO, Claire Bradbury, resigned after claiming she had been subject to misogynistic language.

The latest chapter in the ever-evolving crisis was spoken about at length on Sky after Hull KR’s win at Wigan Warriors – with Paul Cooke demanding the time has now come for the owners to break their silence.

He said: “It’s not good enough for the sport. I feel for Paul Rowley and his staff because some of those players are not ready for Super League, it is as simple as that. We’ve been taken out of the firing line but these boys are being put in front of the firing line every week.

“Tell the truth. Tell me why you wanted to buy the club and if they’re the wrong reasons, move on and sell the club. Give me the information that the average rugby league fan wants to know.

“If it’s deeper or darker than what people thought at least there’s a starting point to rebuild. They’re getting pumped every week and the game has helped them out in terms of loans and changing rules on loan players. It’s got to stop at some point.”

Cooke continued: “There’s some dishonesty and you can’t be dishonest with rugby league fans. They know their onions at Salford and that loyal fanbase wants to know the truth.

“The problems that are at Salford are so big now that the game has got to get involved and make a decision and tell everyone, so Salford can move on and start from the bottom and rebuild up.”

Fellow pundit Jon Wilkin urged the conversation to switch towards the positive stories in the game after months of debate over the Red Devils’ future: but admitted he was understanding of why the discussions were taking place.

He said: “If you’re a cynic you’d say they’re running away from the protests.

“I think the lack of information from the club, from those new owners of the club, and from the game about the situation.. the vacuum gets filled with speculation. The longer that goes on from the ownership, it becomes a bit of a laugh.

“On a night like tonight when we’ve celebrated some amazing stories like Hull KR’s rise to prominence, it frustrates me we have to talk about Salford. It was a club that hung its hat on a very limited chance of this backing coming through and it’s been exposed. I just think let’s talk about these teams.”

Brian Carney then said: “We’d like to extend an opportunity to the Salford owners to stand here and answer questions put to them.”