6 points IMO is totally inadequate IMO.

These aren't "normal" administration circumstances. Creditors aren't (yet) getting stiffed, debts aren't being welched on.

I don't see why the normal penalties should apply, there needs to be some element of discretion.

Ok, why exactly is this different to Wakey... before you answer you are aware that OK Bulls were two weeks into a WUP by HMRC? So unless the NEWCO has paid enough to the administrator to settle in full with HMRC then there is no difference as I can see?

So Andy, what is the difference, because I can't see one?

He won't have one. Had the wind being blowing in a different direction at the time he was posting, then the post would have being entirely different.

Calm down and untwist your knickers folks. New statement this evening has Mr Moore apologising for his previous statement when he wrongly believed the Bulls would be starting the season without a points deduction. He blamed his "newness" to the sport and a points deduction is still on the cards.

Oh Gotcha, with your ad hominem nonsense again.

So little to add to the thread, the board or humanity in general.

Now, to answer the sensible question.

My understanding is that OK Bulls was put into admin in order to facilitate the transfer of the assets to Bulls 2014.

Bulls 2014 has agreed to take on all the creditors of OK Bulls, including HMRC. This isn't a case of a company being wound up and a Newco being formed free of debt to take it forward. As such, I don't believe the normal rules for entering administration should apply.

If that's not the case then fair enough, but that's what I was given to understand.

The statement from the club that I read stated that they'd work with the creditors; it didn't say that they'd be paid in full. Suppose any proposed deal with creditors isn't acceptable by any reasonable standards? What then? I understand your argument but it involves taking a heck of a lot on trust.

Well firstly, not all & again it is not yet clear if the creditors will get all their money... I really do doubt it. We understand Omar Khan will not be getting his directors loans back from Bulls 2014. Now of course I agree that this is just hard-lines, but still strictly speaking he is a creditor & suspect he might consider some sort of legal action, but doubt he will be successful.

Secondly, I don't think Bulls 2014 can settle outstanding debts owed to HMRC by OK Bulls. HMRC are not like a business that are owed money, and therefore can just take all, or even part, of what they are owed by OK Bulls from Bulls 2014. I think that HMRC would be potentially be acting unlawfully if they were to accept any payment from Bulls 2014 when other creditors are potentially still waiting. I very much doubt HMRC will see it's money, although that is not the end of the world as a new functioning company is generally a better longer term option for HMRC as in a matter of months Bulls 2014 will have paid more in ongoing taxation then OK Bulls owed then in unpaid tax... this is the bit that everyone forgets about HMRC.

I very much doubt any existing company creditors will get their money in full from Bulls 2014. Given that anything is better than nothing and that if they doth protest too much Bulls 2014 don't pay them a penny anyway, then they will just take what they are offered.

Given that this sounds exactly like what Andrew Glover did when he took over WTW, and also did take on and pay, bless him (that's irony BTW), a reasonably large percentage of outstanding creditors and what he got for that is 4 point instead of 6 point reduction, a fair precedent has already been set by the RFL.

Finally, even if Bulls 2014 paid every single creditor in full then they have still be allowed, again, to go through a pre-pack. I know for a fact that Andrew Glover wanted to do exactly that, also again, but he was told that it was then a straight forward demotion to the Championship. Michael Carter has therefore also come in and paid off all of The outstanding creditors (probably not 100% of monies, but again something is better than nothing) and made cuts, sold players, made people redundant, and basically got the club living within its means to not enter administration. Now, the Bradford Club have not done any of that to any great extent & start a vital season with 90% of its squad intact... now, no matter which way you cut it that us not fair. The only discretion the RFL should be giving this club is only giving then 4 points deduction & not 6!

Of course, also please not let us forget that the RFL do have an unarguably direct vested commercial interest in the Bulls survival in SL!!!

When did any business ever guarantee to settle all its creditors "in full"?

There's a huge difference between agreeing to settle all the debts and agreeing to take them on.

So Andy as I hope you can now see, this is exactly like what happened at WTW. There is no difference & so far, no one I have seen seems to have posted anything that sets this apart from both the WTW & Crusaders administrations & their subsequent 4 point deductions.

Fairness is all that is required here & the RFL just need to bite the bullet, grow some balls, and hand the Bulls a 4 point deduction, irrespective of & not forgetting their vested commercial interest in a member club.

Wakey weren't docked 50% of their sky money. For all the talk coming out of Wakefield regarding fairness, their fans would do well to remember that, as a similar (ludicrous) punishment would have sunk them without trace.

FWIW the punishment I'd advocate for Bradford would depend on what they come up with in terms of settling with creditors. If they make a reasonable repayment offer - not necessarily full payment but a reasonable, structured offer - then the punishment should be two points with another four suspended, forfeit if/when they default on said offer. That to me is fair and, importantly, isn't so great a handicap that the league competition becomes compromised - not something I'd like to see now that a fair bit of interest hangs on the reintroduction of P&R. Neither do I think a four-point deduction in a season with no P&R equates to one in which there is.

A couple of points are in my mind over this. Firstly the Bulls should incur the same penalty as any other club that enters into Administration. There are precedents for this, so they should receive a points deduction penalty (probably 4-6 points).

Secondly, if the club went into Administration, and as such the business was bought by the new company (Bulls 2014 Ltd) where will the new company be getting their funding from? Surely any "cash at hand" if there was any, would have been used to pay creditors. Similarly and income that was due to the previous company will have to be used to pay the creditors of that old company. If this doesn't happen then the Administrator won't have acted in the best interests of the creditors.

There is much more to come on this story, and whilst I would like to see the Bulls (or any other club) survive, I fear for their league position this term.

There are precedents, granted. But as I posted earlier, does a four-point deduction in a season with no relegation equate to one in which there is?

But a penalty is on the indiscretion at hand, not on what the structure of the league is.

Would the Bulls have been if such a mess if they had not been docked 50% of the Sky money?
How much money is involved?
It seems like throwing a drowning man a brick rather than a life jacket.

Unless the rules of the game have changed since the precedent was set, then they should receive the same punishment. The fact that relegation will occur for 2 clubs at the end of this season is irrelevant to the fact they have going into Admin. The timing could have been better for the Bulls I agree, but we have to have consistency with the rules and their application, otherwise the game would be a (or more of a) laughing stock.

Yes, they would have being in a worse mess. They wasn't docked 50%, they took the option of receiving less than the others in order to preserve their Super League place.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of that decision is another argument. But they would not be in Super League without doing that, and therefore in with an opportunity of earning more and staying in the super league competition.

Been.

Consistency in the rules is one thing but that means little if the respective penalties or, more importantly, their effects aren't. Wakey's 4 point penalty meant absolutely nothing. They could have been docked one thousand points and it would have made virtually no difference (if that toothless ruling wasn't a way of making the game a laughing stock, I don't know what is). The playing field has changed in a big way since then though and it should be factored in IMO.

That is spot on.

Again, to not follow their own previous precedents would be outrageous enough, but not to do so for the only club the RFL has a direct vested commercial interest in staying in SL has to be questioned and challenged... laughing stock would going easy on them to be honest!

Well that is not strictly true, in principal it did mean something because it meant the play-offs were potentially harder to reach and it did cost them a league place. Ok, the chances were slim of them reaching the 8 that year, having lost half their squad, but it was still a punishment.

You do say that the playing field has changed in a big way, and that is true, but equally lets not forget that because the RFL does have a direct vested commercial interest in the Bulls survival in SL then they really need to be careful about now going back on previous precedents set, because they are open to a very genuine allegation of corruption... one that actually might have some legal basis for challenge by any clubs that got relegated ahead of them come October!

The plot thickens! So, now we hear that the SL clubs are to receive a one off £300k additional payment from the RFL from monies from Sky in a matter of days! I understand that this was known by the RFL & the SL clubs following the infamous meeting a couple of weeks ago. So, given that OK Bulls were subject to a WUP by HMRC from 16th January & the RFL have facilitated OK Bulls going into administration with this knowledge, there surely has to be a question about whether OK Bulls were in fact not insolvent at all as if the debts owed by the Bulls were less than £300k and admin was only a mechanism to enable a change of ownership, they weren't insolvent last Friday were they?

When you also start to dig a bit deeper it turns out that Bulls 2014 was in fact incorporated on the 12th November 2013!!! That seems to be very convenient as well... just as the RFL needed a mechanism to change ownership of the Bulls at very short notice, the guys they wanted to take over just happened to have a company hanging around (for nearly 3 months) that would suffice & not only that, the name they had decided to call the company was Bradford Bull 2014 Ltd... what an amazing unplanned coincidence!

You never know what is around the corner in business though, there they were with a business plan and bank loan already agreed for the distribution rights to a spermbank of some of the country's top pedigree bovine males, name registered ready to start shipping phials of bull juice to eager farmers all over the world when the fridge breaks down and all the stock is ruined.

Not being keen to spend another twelve months tossing off randy bulls with a test tube in one hand and a cow porn mag in the other they call an emergency board meeting to discus alternative avenues of income and on the way in one of them buys a Telegraph and Argus, "Well Gentlemen, I think I may have just the answer" ...

I understand what you are saying, but if the RFL wanted there to be a difference in the "impact" of a punishment between a season where there was no Relegation and one where there is Relegation, then they should have changed the rules to reflect this. They didn't, meaning that we are left with the rules that were in place for the precedent currently set, and as such that precedent has to be followed.

If I were a Wakefield Director, I would be watching this very closely, and should there be no (or should that be not equal?) points deduction for Bradford, I would be instructing my Solicitors to write to the RFL and advise them to expect legal proceedings should Bradford "survive" and Wakefield "go down" with a difference of less than the number of points penalty that Wakefield incurred under the exact same set of rules.

The rules are in place now (whether we agree with them or not is irrelevant), and have to be followed, otherwise it's a very clear case of double standards by the RFL.