Published at 08:58, Saturday, 07 April 2012

WHITEHAVEN Rugby League Club went bust owing more than £300,000, it has been revealed.

A final report on the administration of the club showed it owed creditors £329,818 when it was placed in the hands of RSM Tenon in 2010.

The club was later bought for £27,500 by a new company, Whitehaven 2010, led by former chairman Dick Raaz and directors Ralph Calvin and Michael Wood.

That meant its outstanding debts were effectively wiped out. The only cash recovered from the old club was a sum of £976.18, paid to the Government which met employees’ wages and holiday pay from the Redundancy Payments Scheme.

The club owed £70,876 to trades creditors including local businesses, £22,500 to employees, £22,517 to club directors, £117,425 to banks and financial institutions, an estimated £80,000 to the Inland Revenue and £28,000 which was advanced from the Rugby Football League.

The costs of winding up the club far outweighted the price it was sold for, with administrators RSM Tenon alone charging nearly £40,000 in fees for its services. Legal fees for the sale amounted to more than £14,000 and it also cost £3,800 to value the club’s assets. RSM Tenon has written off half its costs because there was nothing left to cover them.

Whitehaven RLFC will be formally dissolved in three months.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk