Absolutely agree, we were the first club to embrace the Super League era and are one of biggest brands in the game.

Half the teams in Super League are there having been promoted from the league below.

MY very own George Galloway??

Would you please be so kind as to explain the context of of the quote, I suspect it may have little or no relevance to RL? I'm sure you've got time, in your boring life in WF6..

The Bulls (well OK, Northern) used to be in division 2 at one time - there you go, our bona fides..

My was in the context of Bradford as a city...I'd assume you'd realised that but was trying a sly dig!
Thr relevance was in the self pity that various Bulls fans are wallowing in....And again I assume you understood that too.


As for my boring life,you're the one with 4,100 posts mate!

I'll confess there is an element of guarded pessimism in many posts, probably including my own, but I'm not sure where you get the "self pity" or "wallowing" from, to be honest; more like attempts to make realistic assessments of the direction the immediate future may be heading in?

I think after the season we've had it's fairly natural to be a bit wary of over optimism and expecting too much and whilst Omar is fabulously wealthy (compared to me!) he's no Roman Obramovitch as he's admitted in the local press, so the 'sanctions' (loss of a chunk RFL/Sky monies) are going to bite, make no mistake.

Btw, 4k+ posts is just on this board but I do post elsewhere too - though this is since C1999, when I first learned the wonder of msg boards, so it's taken a while to get up that total, and I can only stare in wonderment at the amount [isome[/i spend on here!

Since your posting rate is only about 25% more than his, I find it hard to see what point he is seeking to make?

Does anybody actually care how many posts one has, it takes about 10 mins of somebodys day to right a few posts, hardly time consuming and evidence of no or a boring life is it?

Fair points,wasn't having a pop at you regarding wallowing but some other posters?
Adeybull, Bulliac seems an intelligent poster, I don't think he needs you to nurse maid him!

Read the thread again, my response was to Bulliac regarding his mention of my boring life in Wf6?

Everyone seems to be a little toucy right now.

He is, he doesn't and I wasn't. I was merely observing, as one does...

Fact? They were given the chance. None of them wanted to, and anyone with a brain can understand why. It rapidly became obvious that for any of the leading Championship clubs to advance their ambitions from the next licencing round to now would have been folly for them, and the idea of a mini-licencing round was rightly quickly buried.



Ooooh, be careful, if you thkweem and thkweem like this for long you'll be sick. Maybe when you've calmed down you will read what you put and see it for the emotional rubbish it is.

Apparently franchising is the only reason Championship Clubs aren't being watched by massive crowds in brand new grounds. It must be true, I read it on the VT....

I may have been in a minority but I never expected the Bulls to be anywhere other than SL. The fact is, regardless of recent troubles, the Bulls are one of the biggest names in the competition. People from a number of teams hate to hear it, but all SL teams are not created equal, and the sport as a whole needs a strong Bradford.

Anyway, the main thing is to focus on financial stability and performances on the field from now on. If I were a Bulls fan I'd take a self-enforced 6 month sabbatical from discussing anything to do with the club's finances.

Wouldn't worry about the 2nd year as it has been reported in the RL press this morning that in 2013 you will receive £625k and in 2014 you will get £650k instead of the 1.25 million a year.

Question how can they say what is happening in 2014 if you only have a one year probationary licence. Or is that just for effect.

Probation is the key word, Bulls behave financially this season and 2014 SL status is almost certain

So for this club to be anything other than total whipping boys for two years, with a far far weaker team and structure than any other club and therefore going into the next Licensing round at a massive massive disadvantage, the owner has to shell out best part of £2/3m more money each year than his peers. Or the fans and others do.

If somehow this club pulls it off and does retain its Licence next time round, despite being at a massive financial disadvantage compared with every other club, I doubt any club will ever have deserved it more.

I hope the withheld money (assuming that is what happens) is used 100% to pay of the creditors that the last scandalous load of shareholders collectively contrived to allow to happen. Since the amount seems pretty close to the total per the statement of affairs, if you knock out what is supposedly owing to Hood's company. If it DOES, then that will at least shut up all those who have been taking the moral high ground (funnily enough, mainly from only certain clubs) about creditors being screwed. And then we also have a template for any of the OTHER clubs should they go bust and seek re-admission. Because the RFL would never want to be seen to have punished Mr Khan and our club for the sins of the previous owners more harshly than others, would it?

And still no investigation into the secret 700k loan, the sequence of repeated failures to make repayment, the purchase (seizure?) of the stadium lease and the false cover story?

Omar Khan and the fans have been left with a £3million bill for a series of interelated events the RFL either ignored or conspired in.

Totally agree and have no problem whatsoever with that.


Out of interest is there any mechanism for an 3rd party (the RFL) to pay the tax of a unrelated and possibly liquidated company (Bradford Bulls Holdings)?

Doubtless the shareholders of the now-defunct company will be funding a suitable investigatiion into what happened? Now we have assurance of SL status, at least for now, the role of the RFL (or at least some people there) in all this clearly needs to be better established and explained?

We know newco has no obligation to pay the debt so why would the RFL pay them with the "withheld" Sky money - there is no obligation on them to do so. Not sure the RFL's own cashflow is that robust that it could payout £1.2m for a piece of the moral highground.

I would be curious to know - if the story is true - what the reason would be for cutting our Sky money in half? If it was to recover monies owed by the previous lot to the RFL and not other creditors - then on the face of it that would seem like undue preference for one of the creditors?

The way things are being loaded onto OK I am just waiting for Red Hall to annouce we have to give all the other teams a 20 point start for each match.

Not without a CVA, I don't think. But I don't think that would not preclude a voluntary settlement by the governing body, especially if that was the price for avoiding serious consequences. But its all speculation! And I have not seen any numbers actually quoted yet apart from in the guy's post earlier.

Bear in mind I have only suggested what any withheld monies might best be used for. I would be pretty annoyed if instead every other club received more, since that would be a double-whammy.

The RFL may however prefer not to have this non payment of tax thrown back at them when they come to negotiate with Sports England. Given the £29M they got last time is bound to come under pressure next time, their failure to regulate one of their clubs so spectacularly will undoubtedly be a point of discussion.

1 - To head off sanctions against the game by HMG, who are sick and tired of sports clubs going bust and taking the HMRC and the taxpayer for a load of money that was never their own in the first place? This has been worrying me for a while, and especially since the Rangers debacle which I think was the last straw for HMRC, although would it be fair to make an example of RL?

2 - The statement of affairs shows no monies owing to the RFL.

And, maybe more to the point, they could demonstrate that they have taken "firm measures" that will be applied to any future insolvency, as a massive deterrent to any other owners with similar ideas?

Does all make you wonder?