Just in a spare few minutes between meetings thought about if we had cut our cloth since the goings on in April 2012. Look at the squad of players who have left since then and whose replaced them. A decent 13 + 3 subs left, replaced by a few.

Sykes
Ainscough
Whitehead
Lulia
Crookes
Sammut
Jefferies
Kopczak
L'estrange
Hargreaves
Elima
Bateman
Langley
-----------
Platt
Pryce
Burgess

Probably missed someone to make up the 17!

Replaced by

Foster
Henry
George
Gaskell
Sidlow
Loan player (Evans last year)
Blythe

So - clearly cut cost whilst trying to maintain a competitive squad to retain our place in Super League. No divine right but trying to square a difficult circle!
Ferguson

Can I be unintentionally intrusive and suggest that if by cutting your cloth so drastically (as you have clearly demonstrated) and you are still in such dire straits, the magnitude of the financial problem had it been addressed fully and in the first instance might have left you with no squad at all?

That list begs the question of how much were that lot being paid???? It must have been well over the odds

You can, what's clear OK overestimated the revenue he could pull in from 3rd party to cover the costs of the central Sky money withdrawl. 16 players out, 7 in (8 if you count Carvell) is pretty spooky given we lost half our Sky money

Sibbit, Murphy, Joseph, Naughton

Some, Platt and Sykes, were allegedly amongst the highest paid in the club, a result of McBannana's view of their abilites. I can imagine some of the others would have been amongst the highest paid (Sammut, Elima), some were underpaid and were easy targets (Kopczak & Burgess)

Good call, although none of them would be highly paid

Bit disingenous this thread because much of this "cloth" has been cut only very recently (Sammut, L'Estrange, Bateman, Langley, Lulia) and going through last season paying these wages was clearly not viable and helped lead to the latest void.

"Cloth" includes back room staff and I don't just mean playing squad support.

Wakefield got rid of admin staff, closed 2 shops (or drastically cut opening hours), and even now have fans doing ground safety work.

The size of your "cloth" is obviously based on income too...

Wakefield Let's get rid of our CEO, Bradford, let's appoint Robbie Hunter Paul. How can that expense be justified, the owners should be undertaking that role in times of need

Forgot about that!

Wakey CEO was a true lover of the game and the club, but with no real understanding of the business side of RL, so they got rid.

For Bulls, it's different...oh, hang on...

[i.....each department had been cut by “around twenty per cent.”

My Hunter-Paul said the coaching, ticketing, retail, lottery, stadium management, conference and banqueting and commercial departments had all been affected.[/i

[urlhttp://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/10877759.Job_losses_as_Bradford_Bulls_implement_cuts/?ref=mr[/url

They cut back the shop's hours and have run volunteer sessions for the last two years where (among other things) fans have worked in the shop, painted the terraces, performed ground safety work and cleared snow just to get winter games on. I'd copy up some of the emails they sent out requesting volunteers but I doubt that the facts would stem the diatribe.

Well if the books still don't balance, then you need to offload staff completely and or raise income.

If you can't do that, your business is unsustainable and you need to liquidate it.

Don't come back with the "half sky money" bullocks...the board knew that income didn't exist 12 months ago and should have budgeted accordingly.

Think you've posted on here in the last 24 hours more than any of us Bulls fans

Any particular reason for that?

Yeah, Bradford should cut back on their staff and make redundancies. [url=http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/10877759.Job_losses_as_Bradford_Bulls_implement_cuts/?ref=mrOh wait a moment[/url

Great. We may have financial troubles, but there is a world-class financial guru in our midst.

Please, guru. Please share some more of your valuable and brilliant insights into the world of high finance, to which your breathtaking revelations so clearly reveal you belong.

It can only be, such is the stratospheric level of your economic wizardry, that you are a multi-billionaire. Please, drop us a billion from your small change, so we lesser mortals who are not worthy can eat the crumbs from your bountiful table.




The funny thing is, you probably actually think you're saying something clever, while giving us all a rare laugh in troubled times at your halfwitted aphorisms. You can't see what a=#BF0000 cheeky chops it makes you look, and that's funny. You make Baldrick seem sharp. For that, at least, thanks.

"You need to offload staff completely"



yes, i can see how that works! No players, no gatemen on the turnstiles, yep, that's the answer.

Trouble is it is pretty much what we already got now. It doesn't look too clever, to be honest.
=#FF0000
A bit OTT - Pumpetypump

I would love to see Wakey try and play a season with £600,000 less than all the other clubs.....not including that £600,000 dished out to the clubs. Plus 6 point relegation. Would survive half the season, the Bulls have done it 2 years on the bounce and we are still here and competing....nothing short of amazing!!!!

I wouldn't say amazing. It's a good team you can't afford, that's why you've been in admin twice in two years and just been docked 6 points. Any team could do that.

I think the cutting of your money was crazy!

But the board knew about it from day 1, it wasn't just sprung on you.

The club should have spent money accordingly and not spent money they knew they didn't have.

Well I won't lower myself to your level with the ridiculous insults.

Schoolchildren are taught that more money coming in than going out is good, the reverse being less good.

If you know you earn £x, don't spend £xxx.

Are you deliberately not understanding on purpose just to be annoying?

Unless you're running an organisation with a guaranteed income, you don't know at the start of the year how much cloth you have to cut. One of the fundamental mistakes Khan made when agreeing to the Sky fine was to assume he could generate more cloth elsewhere. That the Coral Stand was an under utilised potential goldmine and that the pop world would flock to Odsal. It wasn't that the Bulls didn't cut their cloth accordingly, they just didn't realise that they hadnt any cloth to cut.

Well the RFL has commented that the business plan was poor.

I certainly appreciate that income may not have been worked to its potential.

To get the sums wrong by 500k though...

Bottom line is, either increase income significantly and cut expenditure, or the business dies.

Of course, any credibility Bulls had went out of the window, when it was revealed that at the time Moore was giving it the "we don't need to sell players, they are ring fenced" baloney, he was asking the RFL for a 500k loan!

Only that's not true that's what RFL said but it isn't the truth.

They asked in January for the reduction in sky money to be spread over five years not a loan.

RFL didn't look at the business plan.

“At a meeting with the club’s directors on February 7 they informed the RFL that they needed a further £500,000 of investment or advances of broadcast monies in order to continue to trade." RFL Statement

They wanted an advance on TV money - a loan against future income. Spending money before you had it.

The Bulls statement about "we don't need to sell players" seems to have been removed from the Bulls site.

No Bulls fans seem to want to face the fact that the club needs to address the balance of income and expenditure.

If you can't improve income (and taking TV money early wouldn't solve the problem), then costs have to be cut.

Yes, some cuts have already been made, but they are clearly not enough.