That one's easy.

A company's owners (ie. The shareholder(s)) appoint (as they are legally required to do) one or more directors to run it for them.

The owner can act as director himself and/or appoint anybody else he wishes as a director.

Agreed it's all very unclear - eg who is/are the directors of OK Bulls today? If there are none, Mr Khan better appoint at least one sharpish.to avoid being in legal default.

The ideal solution is for Bradford Bulls to start again with a new owner (Supporters' Trust?) play at Horsfall and work their way back up from the Championship. This time not spending any more money than they have.

Don't hold your breath though. The only way for the owner the get a big proportion of his loans back from Sky money is to appoint new directors with the aim of keeping the Bulls in Super League. I'd suggest the chances of that being successful as being about 60-40 against at best.

But it isn't easy, though. It doesn't explain the basis on which a person would come in, devote huge amounts of time and effort, and (seemingly) spend significant amounts of their own money, unless they did so with nothing legal in place whatsoever as to their ownership of the shares. I find that scenario extremely implausible.


Indeed


Yes, because there are certainly queues of people with the skill, will and time to start up and run a club from the ground upwards from scratch, for nothing. Only perhaps you could point me in the direction of the queues as for some reason I can't find them. Oh, and they couldn't start again as Bradford Bulls as that trading name is seemingly owned by someone else.

From what little we know I would think it is a breach of contract situation, ie Moore & Whitcut signed terms of sale committing to buy the shares on a specific date at a specific price. They have not provided funds to complete the purchase by the contracted date and would therefore be in breach of contract. If it was a share purchase by individuals then no doubt they'd have signed the agreement on a personal guarantee basis hence why OK is suing them. Their failure to fulfil the contract would put them in breach of contract and able to be sued.

That's certainly a possibility, but would that contract be null and void if things where hidden at the time of the sale, such as undisclosed loans to the previous owner? Or is it a case of buyer beware?

Whilst it is of no use to the Bulls. The lessons that the Bulls are teaching other SL clubs are valuable. ie if you can get fans to try and bail out the club, put the money into buying a portion of the club and don't hand it over. I can only look back and think if administration had occurred and the fans offered their £0.5 million as capital would the club have been run differently? Yes maybe a few league places lower due to less being spent, but solvent and looking to the future.

I know it's pointless to reminisce, but hey!

Just a thought, would a new club need to start elsewhere. The RFL own the ground, so surely they could allow 2 RL clubs to play there? Also whilst the Bradford Bulls name is taken, does anyone have dibs on Northern??? Also would they need to start outside of SL as the rules for entry into SL is arbitrary and dependent upon the clubs voting for it???

But it would be something for the Bulls fans on mass to transfer to a new club entirely. You don't want to split the fan base as it's the one asset worth something at Bradford. The fan base in a way is the only asset worth anything.

It's a none starter. The length of time it would take to set up the trust - given the legal undertakings required - and then setting up a bank account for it would have meant the club would have been liquidated long before it happened.

It was talked about at the time but it would only work in setting up a brand new club or taking over one that was solvent.

The pledge meant there was cash in the club to keep it going a little but longer. Ultimately it did help save the club although it wasn't what the donations from us were intended for.

Also I've just thought that season tickets already sold are a kind of asset, as you have a captive fan base. They may not be worth anything as money has already been spent, but any new club would need to honor these tickets surely? Or lose thousands of fans.

Quote ="Wooden Stand"That one's easy. A company's owners (ie. The shareholder(s)) appoint (as they are legally required to do) one or more directors to run it for them. The owner can act as director himself and/or appoint anybody else he wishes as a director. Agreed it's all very unclear - eg who is/are the directors of OK Bulls today? If there are none, Mr Khan better appoint at least one sharpish.to avoid being in legal default. The ideal solution is for Bradford Bulls to start again with a new owner (Supporters' Trust?) play at Horsfall and work their way back up from the Championship. This time not spending any more money than they have. Don't hold your breath though. The only way for the owner the get a big proportion of his loans back from Sky money is to appoint new directors with the aim of keeping the Bulls in Super League. I'd suggest the chances of that being successful as being about 60-40 against at best.'" Could be worth a visit for anyone interested in setting up a Trust philcaplan.wordpress.com/2013/12 ... by-league/

Quote ="Wooden Stand"That one's easy. A company's owners (ie. The shareholder(s)) appoint (as they are legally required to do) one or more directors to run it for them. The owner can act as director himself and/or appoint anybody else he wishes as a director. Agreed it's all very unclear - eg who is/are the directors of OK Bulls today? If there are none, Mr Khan better appoint at least one sharpish.to avoid being in legal default. The ideal solution is for Bradford Bulls to start again with a new owner (Supporters' Trust?) play at Horsfall and work their way back up from the Championship. This time not spending any more money than they have. Don't hold your breath though. The only way for the owner the get a big proportion of his loans back from Sky money is to appoint new directors with the aim of keeping the Bulls in Super League. I'd suggest the chances of that being successful as being about 60-40 against at best.'" Could be worth a visit for anyone interested in setting up a Trust philcaplan.wordpress.com/2013/12 ... by-league/

Isn't it more a case of "buyer make sure you have a competent solicitor"?

The way this saga has been reported it seems rather like someone buying a dilapidated house without carrying out a proper survey. They then move in and start spending money on renovations, only to find that the problems are much worse than they thought and the house is about to fall down. And the previous owner has somehow managed to attach a mortgage to the property. But the good news for them is that they haven't actually paid for the house and the previous owner has held onto the title deeds so they think they can back out.

You would normally expect solicitors to stop much of that from happening (although not the bit about not carrying out the survey). Given the Bulls widely reported financial problems, you would assume that any sensible buyer wouldn't go near the club without watertight legal agreements. And the people involved all seem to be savvy individuals which makes this farce seem so inexplicable.

I don't think the Bulls could survive a protracted legal dispute. This sort of dispute must be the kiss of death for potential sponsors. It must have killed off any hope of selling more season tickets. And I very much doubt that any of the parties involved will want to put any more money into the club to cover any cashflow problems.

Makes you wonder how long we can continue to pay salaries.

Which is why it is important to get good attendances at the friendly games.

We already had then (and still have) a Supporters' Trust in situ. But MBBB is nevertheless dead right.

As was explained at the time, there was no way, in the very tight "Pledge" timeframe, the Trust (by which you really mean a handful of volunteers) could have done ANYTHING to come up with an alternative to what happened. And we sure as hell spent a very great deal of time (our OWN time - since we were all working) trying to find a way.

Don't forget that, contrary to popular myth, a significant proportuon of the "pledge" £1/2m was NOT contributed by fans (e.g the club counted the extra Leeds attendance money as part of it, and there were significant corporate contributions). The club was able to put its whole resources behind the fundraising campaign. Had anyone gone up against the club saying "give US the money not the club", firstly you would have been competing against the club, leading to the pledge failing and certain administration, and secondly I cannot conceive you would have raised anything like as much in the timeframe.

So the division amongst the fans would have been blamed for bringing about immediate administration.

And it was never about the cost of the shares. It was about how the hell you would raise enough to pay off the existing creditors, AND cover the £100k/month forecast losses for the foreseeable future. How many fans would have put their hands in their pockets every month to raise that £100k? I believe around 1,700 individuals contributed to the fomal pledge. EVery one of those would have needed to pledge a further £60 a month or so to cover the losses. You tell me how realistic an aspiration that was?

And what about all the practical issues - like "I contributed £1,000, he contributed £10, so I deserrve 100 times more say in what happens?" or "I contributed goods which were sold, so I want to know what you got for them because that will be the amount of say I expect in things" - or a shedload of other legal and constitiutional issues which I could list examples of [iad nauseum[/i? The idea is great...until (as we did), you start to look at the practicalities at a time when the fans had a gun to their heads.

And in any case, it was a total, utter and complete non-starter whilst the existing shareholders were in place. And in an environment where there was a general perception (as you will all recall) that certain shareholders were using the situation as a means of getting even with certain others, and certain others were determined to proceed as was, having misled the fans over the Odsal sale and the true financial position, and damn the consequences.

We realised very quickly there was no way any of the key shareholders, let alone a majority, would be prepared to sell their shares (except, maybe, at a totally ridiculous price given they were worthless anyway!) to any third party. So the only alternative was to wait for (or maybe even try to force, by undermining the Pledge) administration or (worse) liquidation. But, again, there was a general assumption (only those involved will know the truth or otherwise of it) that that was precisely what some of the shareholders were wanting, so they could step in and buy the business off the administrator that they appointed.

The die was cast, IMO, when Caisley announced - the day before the Pledge closed, by which time it had become reasonably clear from a late surge of support that it was likely to succeed, that he was caling an EGM to sack the board. This stymied any further financial contribution, such as from the "investors waiting in the wings" that Hood reckoned to have. Because of the intervention, we never got to see whether these were real or fantasy.

This is all raking over old ground, and does not change what happened.

And anyway, any action required - and requires - a large groundswell of fans to come forward at very short order to get involved with the Trust. Few actually did. And that continued to be the case.

It was the case when Hood and Bennett resigned; when administrators were appointed; when I pointed out to the assembled masses at the Guidepost meeting that we already had a supporters' trust in place so why start trying to set up a new one; when the wheels came off any plans Caisley might have had; when the Trust set up and ran the Hardship Fund that allowed key staff to keep working with no pay after the joint administrators sacked them all; when OK stepped in; and indeed now.

The trust was effectively made dormant last January, since (notwithstanding the outstanding financial gestures by a number of fans) there was hardly any appetite for fans staying involved, or coming on board and running it. The trust is still there, still dormant, although the caretaker board has nevertheless been involved in a great deal behind the scenes not in the public domain - including means of supporters taking a shareholding in the club.

And the situation remains the same - if enough fans were prepared to get involved and try and make a difference, and enough of those were prepared to take on the workload involved and run it, then maybe - and it would still take time - there might be a way forward.

Not a situation I have come across before but what happens to a ltd company when all the directors resign? Thinking from a company house/companies act rather than the obvious 'it will die a slow death'

The shareholders have to appoint new directors.

I have been a fan for 40 years and have stumped up for every appeal and had a season ticket for over 20 years. Each time I think I am making a contribution to help the club and buy it some time to get its house in order. But looking at this sorry saga I cannot help think that my and all the other fans contributions are just delaying the inevitable?

The recently departed directors did seem to be talking some sense about the club as a business but looking at the current dispute with the owner (ie the person with the shares) the transfer of the business seems to have been written on a fag packet which was subsequently lost.

Of course there was(is) a fully constituted supporters club which is now in mothballs because not enough interested fans couyld be found to keep it going and if I understood correctly OK basically said to Bullbuilder £100k a year or F**k o** and the people who put in their time and effort also coped for assorted hate mail on forums like this.

What next?

To pick up on Adey's final point, BullBuilder does still exist and is still a properly, legally constituted Trust, with existing bank account etc. We had hoped to re-launch at our AGM, to take place by the end of January, but with the current state of uncertainty, we do not know who we would be dealing with, or on what basis we might be able to work.

I don't want to go over old ground, but NorthernRelic is right that we asked for new blood to take the Trust forward actively last year, but received precisely one expression of interest. It would be theoretically possible for BullBuilder to become a vehicle for taking over the club, but a number of things would have to happen, not least that enough people with that intention would have to come forward to join the board, they would have to persuade the current owners to sell on terms that satisfied both parties (as Moore et al were unable to do), and they would have to raise the funds to do so.

If sufficient numbers are interested, come forward, join BullBuilder and stand for the board at the AGM.

I'm not sure how well a trust as a major shareholder would work in SL. People on normal incomes, even banding together in their hundreds, will struggle to compete with the wallet-power of the big benefactors.
When a SL club is well run there's the possibility of being a (junior) partner. Ownership would be much more likely to work in the Championship - and a legally constituted trust is a valuable thing to have in place as a last resort, IMO.

People talking about running clubs as businesses, or demanding that they are, ignores that many of their competitors are willing to run at a loss. No normal business has that challenge.

Who knows what is going to happen at the club, but given the uncertainty having a reharged supporters trust in place might be either a conduit for fans to support the existing organisation or a safety net for RL in Bradford if things really go t**s up?

Absolutely. We'll put out details of the AGM shortly and hope, as we hoped last year, to be able to get people willing to take things forward - in whatever shape or form!

Well, it's Friday afternoon. What time is the positive news foretold by Mick G going to be announced? Any predictions?

Reading the comments to the recent T&A article on this saga, it seems that Trevor Foster's son would be keen to work towards a re-birth of Bradford (Northern?) at grass roots level with a view to working back to SL over time. & he seemed to have quite a few who would follow his lead. If they joined/led the trust, I expect the RFL would sanction the club being run by such a trust (initially in the Championship). But one mightg guess it would need the current owner to see no hope of survival for the current entity owning the club before there could even be contemplation of agreeing to such a development. More realistically would be the trust 'buying' the club (for next to nothing) from any future Administrator (but after all the SL level players had been made free agents once the current owner can no longer afford to honour existing contractual commitments).

I tend to agree with Northern Relic when he says a Supporters Trust is, or can be, a conduit for the current ownership of the Club.

I am not sure how the Warrington model works, but certainly it seems to work in tandem with the current board and the supporters.

I believe Supporters Direct, the umbrella for all current supporters trusts are having a conference at the Hull KR ground in January. Maybe the Bullbuilder trust should arrange a delegation to attend.
Simon(Foster) actually lives in Beverley so he may be able to attend as well, maybe someone also needs to ask Warrington and I believe Widnes how they operate their Trust in tandem with their clubs.

Whichever way it deserves a chance to make a difference, as the ethos of the trust is ,like a workers cooperative, with equality of Direction and a Not for profit organisation.

As Adey says though their are a good few pitfalls, and it wouldn't be easy. But as Bulls fans we probably wouldn't expect anything less. Baptisms of fire are a regular occurrence.

Yes, I predict there will be no good news today, from Mick G or anyone else.


And furthermore, if anyone does claim to have some definitive news from behind the scenes it will only be from one side of one of the camps and so as a rounded and full explanation of anything it will be worth exactly the sum of Jack .




...depressed.

Addy it maybe rehashing over old ground, but thanks anyway, as those of us outside of the Bradford triangle tend to catch glimpses of each part of the crisis and so some still ask what happened to the £500k thinking it's still bashing around somewhere.

I'm sure the supporters trust could not compete against a money man, or even offer enough to buy the current club. But if it ever comes to Adminstration or Liquidation, could the supporters trust come in and by the bulls for say £1 and run it like the previous BOD's mentioned with cuts to Salaries and run at a break even level. Or at least appoint a new BOD to run it with that aim in mind?

A bit of background, picking up on Rarebreed's helpful suggestions.

The Supporters Trust (The Bradford Rugby League Supporters Society Ltd) was established with the sponsorship of Supporters Direct, of which the Trust was a member and various of whose events Trust officers attended. There was liaison with SD over the 2012 troubles period, and agian during 2013 regarding potential supporter investment in the club.

It was very much modelled on the Warrington Trust, various of whose officials provided considerable assistance in the initial stages and came over to address meetings and provide the benefit of their experience. We had more recent involvement with Warrington regarding the Bullbuilder Hardhsip Fund, to which the Warrington club made a substantial and generous contribution. Their finance manager, with whom I dealt at the time, was also involved wirh their Trust, and we had some useful discussions.

The Warrington Trust, through its "Squadbuilder" activity (hence..."Bullbuilder"icon_wink.gif has primarily been a vehicle for raising additional funds for their academy and youth development. As was Bullbuilder, until the troubles overtook all that, and then that role was not deemed necessary by the OK regime. From talking to some of their people, it was also seen as being there in case things went badly wrong at the club - something they have not expected in recent years, with their club being nowdays on a firm financial footing with a wealthy backer at need.

Picking up on the recent post from bewareshadows (posted as I was typing this) - the issue would not be the initial purchase price, but funding the significant ongoing operating expenditure - just as before. Bear in mind, you'd be starting again from scratch with sponsorship and other commercial income, and who would be available and prepared to run the show (and for free) anyway? Assuming that the club would survive another insolvency and remain in SL, which I personally doubt very much indeed.

The issue has never been about setting up and running a Trust, or what it mght be able to do (and the limitations, as Mild Rover so wisely observed). It has been, and remains, about there being enough dedicated and committed individuals prepared to devote the necessary time and effort and expertise to operate the Trust, carry out fundraising activities, and generally to enable it to fulfil people's expectations of it. And then, for enough of the rest of the fanbase to support its activity - whatever form that might take - financially.

A handful of volunteers, in full-time work, is not enough. Never was, and never will be. Therein lies the challenge, if it is indeed to have any opportunity to make a difference. Its basically down to whether enough supporters are ready, willing and able to step up to the task.

It's worth noting that that even clubs in the 3rd tier (Championship 1) get an annual allocation of SKY MONEY.

It's just that you have to cut your cloth accordingly.

Clubs like Oxford, Hemel, Gloucestershire & London Skolars could be asked how they go about things.

If Bradford start again at that level they would have the benefit of likely the biggest crowds in the division and a thriving local amateur / junior game in the area.

Bradford would likely be looking at promotion in the first season for sure. The snowball would be off and rolling (but in a disciplined and self-sustaining way).