North Wales Crusaders get RFL green light to resume season
North Wales Crusaders celebrate last year's League One title success [Dewi Owen] North Wales Crusaders will return to action in the Championship this Saturday after a turbulent few weeks which has seen the club's very existence under threat. The Colwyn Bay-based club had to cancel their last two games when players departed after not being paid. That came after Crusaders' previous owners – The EggChaser Group - announced it would no longer be funding the club, who won League One last year.
But a new company – NW Rugby League 26 Ltd – is now in control of the club and has been granted an interim licence by the Rugby Football League (RFL) to continue for the current 2026 campaign. That means they will fulfil their fixture at Goole Vikings on Saturday but are having to recruit a new squad of players from scratch. "The context of the season has changed now," said Conrad Anderson, a club volunteer who has been working to ensure the the club continued.
"Obviously a new board has been assembled, it's been rectified and a new company has been set up. "That will give us the best chance to go again in 2027. "We've got to be upbeat, and at the end of the day the club has been through the wars.
" Crusaders had been taken over in December 2024 by Bobby Watkins and son Arun - a Zambia rugby union sevens international. Last year they won the League One title and secure their place in the new-look Championship, with then-chairman Bobby Watkins speaking of the club's Super League ambitions. North Wales Crusaders relocated to Colwyn Bay's Eirias Stadium from Wrexham in 2021 [Huw Evans Picture Agency] But in April the Surrey-based EggChaser Group announced it would "no longer fund the additional costs to run the club with immediate effect".
Players, who had not been paid for a number of months, subsequently left the club with their contracts null and void. The club were forced to forfeit their 1895 Cup tie against Midlands Hurricanes and were forced to cancel their league game away to Doncaster. "I just think the previous owners have lived beyond their means basically and it became very obvious to them that they couldn't fill the pictures," said Anderson, who outlined the situation the club was in at a fans forum in Wrexham on Wednesday.