Is it? I suppose that depends on your point of view. If you're associated with another club at their level then I would imagine that it looks like buying your way to promotion. Especially when you're buying players from the top flight of historically strong leagues. If you're associated with a Premiership club then maybe it does look like building your way up slowly.
As a sort of comparison, I know of a non-league club who are now around three tiers below where Salford are currently. They have won three promotions on the trot but have done it on a budget at best equal to the clubs surrounding them. This season coming they will have the smallest budget in their league but are confident of a good season due to the coaching/scouting set up that they have and the enthusiasm and dilligence of their staff. Now, to me, that's much more impressive than what the Salford owners have done.
That sounds all very laudable, successfully keeping a small team going on a small budget.
But I presume they have no grand ambitions to scale the professional leagues the way the Man U consortia do.
They're 2 totally different business models.
