Having just seen this scenario at my club I wish you all the best.
If you do at least ow have some pragmatic people in charge who are willing to make some tough decisions then you can move forward. You may have to lose some of your high earners and replace with lesser earners but there are still players out there who can bolster a squad providing you can keep SOME quality.

I'll say what I've been saying on our board for the past few months though, you will only do this by pulling together and backing the new regime. What's happened has happened and you can't change it, you can only hope to learn from it.
Cutting costs and making your club sustainable is the only way forward. As fans we all have to accept that times are going to be tough but better a club that is struggling than no club at all.

Clearly nothing, though? You are always a sensible and responsible poster, but are still falling into the trap of making assumptions. Yes indeed about the Sky money being a red herring, but what we were told last night boiled down to:

1 - OK DID put money in - much of it as loans not capital/gift though - but nothing like as much as people thought he had. (And, indeed, if the money was to be fed in in instalments to meet outgoings, then that would maybe not be such a surprise?)

2 - The big hole in the budget is because the budget was a crock of sheeite. Or, more to the point, there were several versions of the budget, depending on who the recipients were. Seems the budgets agreed with the RFL bore no reseamblance to the much larger budgets that individual managers we given and working to. Or to the budgets that the new board were given. THAT, and a raft of financial skeletons falling out of the closet, is what left "this big hole in the budget". Pretty well the way it was explained last night, anyway.

Moore said OK started with zero, and left it with minus £1.2m.

Having had access to one of the editions of the budget at one point, what I am able to say is that I have no reason to doubt anything we were told about the finances.

You musn't have gone to the forum last night, they went through this.

If a player wants to leave because of all that has gone on they said they wouldnt stand in their way, but on the same point they would be replaced.

The redundancies are to be made on non first team staff as to not damage our chances next season.

In fairness it makes sense as we cant have a club which is run at a loss and they made it clear next season the main thing is survival and dealing with the aftermath of OK's dealings with the Bulls.

Excellent post.

When you refer to budgets, are these the ones that Whitcut and the new owners used to get ratification recently, or the ones OK and Whitcut used some time ago that led to the club being granted a 2014 license?

Presumably the new owners have now drafted some accurate budgets for 2014. Have the rfl seen these?

Thought I said? All of the above, and more.

Yes, they have done new budgets, on what they say are realistic assumptions (as opposed to the various previous budgets drawn up by Whitcu*t) and agreed them with the RFL. They cannot warrant that there are no more skeletons to come out of the cupboard though.

Busy putting a positive spin on his decision not to run at next election I'd imagine. If he thought his involvement at odsal was an easy vote winner think its safe to say its backfired badly.
Something mentioned last night was whitcut signing off batemans transfer without other directors knowledge. How did he manage this legally?. Surely a majority of shares would have had to sign off this type if decision.

Read the last two headlines from the T&A then tell me all makes sense

If your issue is with T&A headlines, maybe your question about left and right hands needs directing at Ross and his editor?

Hello Adey, missed you xx

Because I'm sure the club have absolutely no input into what goes into the paper........

Thank you for that, knowing your posts from the wakey board i realise you are speaking from direct experience. And your sentiments are spot on, as fans all we can really do is support the badge and the shirt, different people will (attempt to) pay the wages of different players but the shirt and the fans will always be there.....hopefully!

I take it now we can remove Awford from the rack & replace him with Whitcu*t? Or is there still room for both?

Your answer was at the forum last night. Repeated by Adey on page 16 of the fans forum thread.

If we need a new catering contract, I assume it is the same whitcu*t Ryan Whitcut's Experience Business Development Northern Hire Ltd Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Events Services industry November 2013 – Present (2 months) Leeds, United Kingdom www.northernhire.co.uk/

If we need a new catering contract, I assume it is the same whitcu*t Ryan Whitcut's Experience Business Development Northern Hire Ltd Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Events Services industry November 2013 – Present (2 months) Leeds, United Kingdom www.northernhire.co.uk/

I would also put Gerry Sutcliffe somewhere near as well. Will be very interesting to hear what he has to say,no doubt he knew nothing of all the e that's been left.

So Omar left because of ill health

I take Moore's point but OK didn't start with zero, he started with a responsibility to put a SL team on the park for people to watch with no sponsorship, no lease on the ground, 50% Sky money and an understanding that even with full Sky money the previous board were losing 100k a month. That's a little bit different. Actually he started with a massive minus.

On the budgets I haven't seen them but have you ever met a new board who came out said the business they are taking over was well run? I haven't and Gerry Sutcliffe said the exact same thing in his office just after the take over.

My point is hold off on the rush to condemn OK. You know I think the actions of the Hood/RFL in the year before admin made matters much worse than necessary and I think both Guilfoyle and Sadler said different groups pulled out when they saw the books.

In short, OK is a restauranteur without any grounding in RL who didn't have to elbow anyone out of the way to buy a basket case. It looks like he failed and but the idea he and Sutcliffe left a situ worse than they found it sounds nonsense.

Were you at the forum?

The point I think Moore was making was that when OK took over, the club had zero debt (it was, after all, a completely new company) and significant operating costs to meet. It now has £1.2m of debt, and significant operating costs to meet. Simple statement of fact about why the financial position now is worse than then.

The interpretation (or misinterpretation) of what was said is down to you. My interpretation differs to yours, since I took it as a simple statement of fact.

If you were at the forum, you will also know that they made it clear that OK - and the rest of the previous administration - indeed had no grounding in RL, or in running a joined-up business involving sport, stadium, hospitality and merchandising. Again, not my interpretation, simply repeating what was actually said. He went on to say that OK seemed to leave all the day to day decsions to Whitcu*t, and used words to the effect that the latter was effectively out of control.

I'm not sure who has had dealings with and been involved in meetings with any of the OK administration. But as one who has, I saw with my own eyes very clear specific examples of where Whitcu*t had clearly not briefed OK, or may even have told him things that were not correct. Maybe he was telling OK what he wanted to hear. And for one of those points, which affected me and my colleagues very directly, I had to put him straight very directly indeed, in front of Whitcu*t.

When history comes to be written, although OK was his own worst enemy in some respects, I feel sure it will record that he was badly let down by some he relied on.

Without wanting to sound flippant; do the new board have that grounding?

I'm sure I remember reading in the T&A one director described himself as an ex-southerner with little knowledge of RL.

Quite.

As you have repeated ad nauseam over several years, no matter who is in charge at the club.

They are strong in debt management with excellent financial controls. Which , at this moment, is what we need.

Adey with you having dealings with OK and previous set up,is that why you haven't been on here for a while before now ?

I believe "the books" to which you refer were in fact the projections and supporting info prepared by, and provided to prospective buyers by, the Joint Administrators. What I saw certainly was.

And the forecast cash funding requirement they showed would likely have put off most prospective buyers. At the time, I wondered at what seemed serious prudence in the projections, but the actual funding requirement out-turn would seem to have fully vindicated that prudence.

Directors Mark Moore, Ian Watt and Andrew Calvert claimed in a statement that “as each day goes by the board continues to receive more information detrimental to the stability of the business”. They added: “The last administrative team struggled to understand the full impact of running this club and stepped away from the business with large outstanding debts which the club now needs to recover from.” www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... __/?ref=eb ==================================================== Cheers OK/Sutcliffe,I saw you coming a mile off. Now given the above is published fact(?)were Elliot Whitehead and Bateman sacrificed to keep the club going?Yes,imo,and as I said at the time,very convenient both were the only players where money could be gained and BOTH "suddenly" wanted to leave and the club were skint ,despite OK's rhetoric in the press.How much did Sutcliffe put in? and then walked away--ill health my ar*e.Was Sutcliffe ill as well?Was it contagious? No,imo,the chickens were coming home to roost so they scarpered. How the fooook has such a great club found itself in this position and run down by incompetent imbeciles? Trevor must be turning in his grave.

Directors Mark Moore, Ian Watt and Andrew Calvert claimed in a statement that “as each day goes by the board continues to receive more information detrimental to the stability of the business”. They added: “The last administrative team struggled to understand the full impact of running this club and stepped away from the business with large outstanding debts which the club now needs to recover from.” www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/s ... __/?ref=eb ==================================================== Cheers OK/Sutcliffe,I saw you coming a mile off. Now given the above is published fact(?)were Elliot Whitehead and Bateman sacrificed to keep the club going?Yes,imo,and as I said at the time,very convenient both were the only players where money could be gained and BOTH "suddenly" wanted to leave and the club were skint ,despite OK's rhetoric in the press.How much did Sutcliffe put in? and then walked away--ill health my ar*e.Was Sutcliffe ill as well?Was it contagious? No,imo,the chickens were coming home to roost so they scarpered. How the fooook has such a great club found itself in this position and run down by incompetent imbeciles? Trevor must be turning in his grave.

I think I may just go hibernate in my bed until February, anyone do any comfy beds or mattresses?!