Featherstone Rovers' Mark Campbell to step down, threatens action over 'libellous' comments, warns of cuts

Rovers hit back from 18-6 down at the break to Betfred Championship campaign with a 24-20 win at Batley Bulldogs yesterday (Sunday). But that result - and the previous weekend’s Challenge Cup defeat of Wakefield Trinity - have been overshadowed by concerns about the club’s situation off the field.

There have been reports of players not being paid in full and over the weekend former Rivers star Craig Hall claimed he has yet to receive money he is owed from his testimonial game last year. In a lengthy statement on Rovers’ website, Campbell admitted he has “taken my eye off the ball” and will quit as chairman and a director once the financial situation is resolved.

He revealed the club owed around £30,000 to players at the end of last season, but insisted that has largely been dealt with and said he expects money due to Hall to be paid within the next fortnight. The chairman also pledged action against “fans who have crossed the line in terms of libellous personal comments” and warned of more cuts to the playing budget if attendances don’t increase. Campbell’s full statement reads:

“As the Club’s Chairman, I take full responsibility for everything that happens at this Club and do feel I have taken my eye off the ball due in part to other issues and my own business commitments.

In view of this, I will work with Martin [Vickers, chief executive] and Steve [Clough, director] to address the cash flow issue. However, once this task has been accomplished, I will be stepping down as Chairman and from the Board of Directors.

“I think all of our supporters need to know that for the last two years, we spent like a Super League Club to ensure we got promoted. We did this on £80k broadcast distribution per annum, not the £1.4M of our Super League counterparts and we did this to achieve Super League promotion before the IMG door was firmly shut this season.

“To put things into perspective, we owed to players at the end of the 2023 season circa £30k. As I speak, we have delivered all of these payments of salaries with the exception of one overseas player and the reimbursement of flight expenses of another player. We continue to work positively with GMB to resolve those matters.

“In terms of Craig Hall, his testimonial year ended in December 2023 and he was entitled to a part-payment of the Hull KR game proceeds. As a Club, we supported Craig throughout the year with free marketing, room hire, opening up the Club’s shirt sponsors to him, Club’s Directors sat on his testimonial committee and plenty more, so we were naturally disappointed that it has come to this. Craig has received a part payment of the balance and we expect to fully resolve this matter within the next two weeks.

“In terms of the negative comments from our own fans, I find it extremely hurtful not only to myself and my family but also to fellow Directors and the team of staff who work so hard behind the scenes to make this Club survive. For those fans who have crossed the line in terms of libellous personal comments, I will be taking appropriate advice on those matters. Don't think you are safe on your facebook channels.

“For the last two years, this Club has left no stone unturned in seeking promotion to Super League. We all know that, from this season, the door is firmly shut for good on Super League for Clubs like ours because of the IMG criteria so we had to speculate if we were to achieve this long-standing objective.

“We did speculate at a time when our broadcast distribution had declined by at least 75%, at a time when the costs of running this Stadium went through the roof, at a time when our supporter base unfortunately stayed the same throughout this period at just 700 paying season ticket holders.

“We did build a team of the highest paid players in the Championship, that won the league by a huge margin but once again failed on the big occasion, a team that were paid on time every time during those two seasons. We did speculate on the back of significant investment from myself and Steven Clough (this is now in excess of £1.7M), unprecedented commercial investment in the Club brought in by Martin Vickers (£600k within the last 2 years) but unfortunately that investment was unsuccessful. It is worth noting that the Club spent on salaries in the last 2 years circa £2.2m, there is currently £8.5k owed in respect of unpaid salaries from the 23 season.

“We have therefore, as I have said previously, cut our cloth accordingly this year, with a reduction in our playing budget of 55% with the sole objective of delivering a Featherstone team that will fight for the badge rather than themselves, and I really do hope that the last two games have shown some positive signs of this. We appreciate the support of our fans but in the current budget plans, our season ticket income based upon 700 paying season ticket holders, probably still accounts for less than 30% of our reduced playing budget so I do expect that we will need to cut further in future seasons if this position remains.

“We always knew the transition to the reduced budget would be difficult, we were very open about this. We have had the longest off-season ever in recent history from February to March with no home games so there was bound to have been issues along the way.

We have fully explained the journey we are on, we need the fans to be with us.

“We all experienced against Wakefield one of the best moments in recent years for our team but the hard facts were we still had more Wakefield fans in the ground than Featherstone supporters. If our fans really do want to make a difference and help, they need to get behind us at Leigh, and the forthcoming big games against Wakefield Trinity and Bradford.

[Coach] James Ford and this team need your support more than ever.”