Salford stadium saga rumbles on

Another month has passed and there’s yet more frustration for fans of Salford City Reds.

Their frustrations are perhaps shared by rival clubs, who maybe a little annoyed that the base of Salford’s winning Super League application last year was a stadium that doesn’t look anywhere near materialising.

The plans have changed since the initial concept was released many months ago, and it now seems that the Reds are partially reliant on a grant from LSC investment, as much as they deny otherwise.

A link up with Salford College is the latest plan following the collapse of the retail idea, but last week John Wilkinson was quoted as saying the link up with the college was the last chance to save the stadiums development.

Naturally, David Tarry came out and contradicted this statement, insisting that the stadium would go ahead as planned either way.

Is this the same stadium that was promised some six years ago?!

The release of a statement about a proposed new stadium is quickly becoming known as “doing a Salford” particularly when it involves next to no new information.

However, Wilkinson has today come out and said: “We have the land, we have planning permission and we have a very supportive and highly qualified team working this project through and it will be delivered.

“The people of the City of Salford deserve a high quality stadium along with one of the best college facilities in the country, and that is what we will give them.

“We ask fans to continue to support and trust the club, in what is a highly complex development as we endeavour to deliver what is every fans dream.”

So Salford have got planning permission and the land, but they’ve still no funding. Has this situation changed over the past few months? No.

How long will the people of Salford have to wait for the high quality stadium they “deserve”?

It was extremely convenient that the collapse of their partners came just days after the Super League licence process, and by the looks of things, it doesn’t look like the Reds will play anywhere other than the Willows during this round of licensing.

The frustration their fans no face is not only seeing star scrum half Richie Myler leaving the club, but the worry that they may be booted out of Super League come 2012 due to their failure to deliver yet another promise.

It would surely be unfair to deny someone else the place on another Salford stadium promise?

Either way, the Reds owe it to their fans to stop messing about with the development and meaningless press releases before their Super League dream fizzles out.