Salford Red Devils have been formally wound up following an HMRC hearing, ending 152 years of the club’s existence in its current form and drawing a decisive line under a prolonged financial crisis.
The company that owned the team, Salford City Reds (2013) Ltd, was ordered into liquidation after failing to secure the funding required to settle debts believed to total around £4million.
HM Revenue & Customs first issued a winding-up petition in May, and the club was granted four adjournments while it attempted to provide proof of incoming investment.
During an October hearing, counsel Alexander Bunzl said “more than adequate” funding was due to become available and that the matter would be “settled promptly”.
No such funds materialised, and on Wednesday, the court brought proceedings to an end, placing the company into compulsory liquidation.
The decision erases the outstanding debts and ends the tenure of Curtiz Brown and Sire Kailahi, who had fronted the takeover effort but were unable to stabilise the club.
Attention will now turn to establishing a phoenix club capable of entering the 2026 Championship season.
Liquidated on paper.
Alive in every heart in this city.
Salford Rugby League was never just a company – it’s a legacy, a cause, a community that refuses to be erased.
From this moment, the fight for a reborn Salford begins.
The 1873 pic.twitter.com/ifTU9AewlV
— The 1873 (@The1873_) December 3, 2025
Salford had been scheduled to begin their Championship campaign in January against Oldham, but the ruling leaves the immediate future of professional rugby league in the city in limbo.
At the time of liquidation, only full-back Jack Walker remained contracted to the club.
Supporters’ group The 1873 issued a sombre statement reflecting the gravity of the moment.
Salford Red Devils have been one of the grandest clubs in Rugby League history
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GETTY
“Let us be honest with ourselves. This outcome has been coming. It is long overdue,” it said.
“It is what the club needs to survive. For months, we have watched uncertainty grow around unpaid debts, unclear leadership, and crumbling trust between ownership and supporters.
“The writing was on the wall, and today – it was finally read aloud in court. It is, without question, a dark day.”
The collapse caps an extended period of instability.
For more than a year Salford have faced explicit financial constraints, operating under salary-cap restrictions after repeated late payments to players and staff.
Their best-known players departed in a season that ended with the club bottom of the Betfred Super League table.
In October, they were removed from next year’s expanded Super League after receiving a low club grading and were provisionally assigned to the Championship for 2026.
Head coach Paul Rowley left shortly afterwards to join St Helens.
The troubled campaign followed a takeover in February by a consortium led by Swiss businessman Dario Berta, after which frozen accounts meant wages were paid via WeDo Finance.
The Rugby Football League acknowledged the drain the situation had placed on the sport but defended its decision to facilitate the takeover earlier this year.
Salford’s collapse, it said, had been all but unavoidable without urgent intervention.
The RFL noted the club’s difficulties were “damaging and draining for the sport” but maintained that approving the rescue package at the time was the “only alternative” to the “very probable and immediate demise of the club”. The demise has nonetheless now arrived, drawing an end to one of rugby league’s founding names and leaving supporters waiting to see what shape a revived Salford presence might take in the years ahead.