Super League<\/a> club and at least one Championship club thousands of pounds each over player loans.<\/p>\nAllegations have been made that the Cougars are in debt to other Super League and Championship clubs as well, and owes money to other unnamed creditors.<\/p>\n
Keighley are the sixth rugby league team to face financial issues since December, with Salford Red Devils, Featherstone Rovers, Halifax Panthers and North Wales Crusaders all going bust.<\/p>\n
Salford, Halifax and North Wales have all reformed under new owners after being liquidated.<\/p>\n
Keighley have won four of their 17 Championship games this season.<\/p>\n
Owners renege on promise to stand down<\/p>\n
![\"Blake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_305090010.jpg\")
The Cougars are currently 14th in the Championship (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill and Garcia, who took over the club in 2019, announced in June that they would stand down as owners at the end of the campaign because of personal and homophobic abuse.<\/p>\n
However, just nine days later they reversed that decision and announced they would remain in charge \u201cfollowing an extraordinary outpouring of support from the club\u2019s supporters, sponsors, volunteers, the town\u2019s MP Robbie Moore and wider community ever since the announcement\u201d.<\/p>\n
Approached by The i Paper, O\u2019Neill has denied that he, Garcia and Keighley are in any financial difficulty.<\/p>\n
\u201cCougarmania had three CCJs over seven years,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll have been paid. One related to the installation of metal poles paid for by the council as part of road widening, but we got left with a substantial part of the bill we didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other two I cannot remember what they were for, but they have all been settled.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bankruptcy claims<\/p>\n
![\"Keighley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_305090008.jpg\")
Owners Ryan O\u2019Neill and Kaue Garcia deny any wrongdoing (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n
On Bedspreadz Poultry\u2019s debts, O\u2019Neill says the pair took over the commercial chicken farm two years ago and that \u201cit has been a hard graft, and we had to make a lot of investment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were taken advantage of by some suppliers being totally green and naive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vets came and charged us \u00a315,000 a month, the water supplier charged us \u00a33,000 a tanker delivery. We disputed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cSadly they pursued us, and when we refused to pay, they slapped us with a CCJ. We are having to pay this, despite it being entirely wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill claims he was discharged from bankruptcy in May last year.<\/p>\n
On the debts owed to other rugby league clubs, O\u2019Neill replied: \u201cWe don\u2019t owe all of those clubs, some we do for loan players which are current creditors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese get paid as normal. All clubs generally owe other clubs money at various times, and it is usual that if a club defaults, the RFL pay out of central distribution.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo pull us on this is to represent probably every club in the competition, both in the Championship and Super League.\u201d<\/p>\n
Questionable business practices<\/p>\n
Questions have also been asked about the business practices of O\u2019Neill and Garcia after their involvement in the company behind the smartwatch company Moochies went into liquidation.<\/p>\n
An investigation by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealed that O\u2019Neill was declared bankrupt by the High Court in May 2024 and a large number of complaints had been made by consumers about Moochies because of software glitches, predatory subscription billing practices and product failures.<\/p>\n
Both the associated UK companies Moochies Trading and Moochies Technologies, which are linked to Garcia and O\u2019Neill, have their accounts overdue and are facing strike-off proposals.<\/p>\n
A third UK company involved with the Moochies product, Kids Tech Company, was dissolved in February.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
On his and Garcia\u2019s involvement in Moochies, O\u2019Neill claims the pair have not been involved with the smartwatch product and its companies for several years.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoochies never paid for Cougars, I had a minority shareholding, I drew a salary, and it was a loss-making venture which is common in the tech industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRunning our own businesses, especially the Moochies one where it is fast growing, always has the propensity to hit hurdles. That doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t always have the best intentions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe club is in no financial difficulties whatsoever, and the investments we have made into its revenues shows that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn regards to my own business interests and the past, this had nothing to do with Cougars, it is historic, it never funded Cougars so is essentially a private matter on an investment that went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The RFL declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keighley Cougars are being chased for money by rival clubs and creditors, with allegations of debts mounting at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691879,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,1386,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-691878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Joe](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/SEI_305090012.jpg\")
Keighley play their home games at Cougar Park (Photo: Getty)<\/p>\n