Bateman's Twitter puts it all to rest.

The only 'vultures' that are circling are the press. But, like Bullseye mentions, Hood's communication skills are appalling, if indeed the comments have been made recently.

It would have to be explained in those terms, which unfortunately would lead to a situation where the club have something to say and we'd have something new from those shysters to not believe.

Sounds quite simple to me? Hood is telegraphing that for the club to survive without the required level of outside investment, Bateman will have to be sold. He's basically challenging Caisley to come up with the necessary investment so that sale can be avoided?

Incidentally, if you were Bateman's agent (Phil Clarke's brother), you would be grossly negligent IMO if you did not advise your client to hold off signing any contract with ANYBODY right now. His value - for an extended Bulls contract or to Davy or Moran and their bottomless pockets and boundless munificence, will likely only keep on increasing. The longer you leave it, the more he is likely to be able to command, whoever he plays for. And you would DEFINITELY not want him to be coerced into being part of a forced sale?

Any bid from Warrington I would imagine is for next year onwards or at least a loan back agreement. This year, I believe we are at full cap already but could be wrong. Huddersfield too if you believe the Lunt scenario was to make cap space available.

See Adeybulls post above for the reason Peter Hood is making all this enter the public domain.

Although the club have stated that £1,000,000 needs to be found by the end of May in order for Bradford Bulls to continue as a entity, in Peter Hoods first interview on the financial plight - he did state that £800,000 would be enough to see the club steady the ship through the rough waters.

Now you do the maths:
£520,000 raised via pledges and fundraising leaving £280,000 to find should no investment be forthcoming.

Administration or sell John Bateman is what Peter Hood is basically telling us.

Er, the last person who speaks to Peter Hood writes these things John. First Wilson in The Guardian and now The Sun.

I have to agree regarding the lunt scenario. the reason for the Moore purchase must of been to make space on the cap system. I could not imagine Hudds would have the space available for bateman unless the throw in a house and car

Irrelevant. House, car, cat, dog, whatever - all counts under the cap.

And you do a sale and loanback if the buyer can't fit someone under the cap immediately.

I've seen it. The simple fact is that if Peter Hood said "Hello, I'm Peter Hood" I'd call him a fscking liar. I'm not making a comment on the Bateman situation, here or in my previous post. I'm just saying that no matter what they say now, nor how many people with an inside track help in the explaining, literally nobody will believe them.

A lot of predators circulating for Kopczak also! Big interest from the rumours going round

To be honest all our players are going to be subjected to moves away from Bradford because we are club on the brink. But on the brink does not mean at the bottom yet just lets hope for postive news in the coming weeks. We all know selling players is the last and only resort

this could be a bit of digging by Hood to see who is is willing to pay and how much and to get a responce from CC

At the moment we are a mid table club performing quite well in the face of adversity on several fronts. Start selling our best players and where will we be, scrapping for bottom place or worse? Who will want to invest in a Team without potential?

Out of interest - can Hood sell Bateman given that the EGM is official? Would he not need to get approval for the sale form the other shareholders in the short term - or would Caisley be "happy" with the sale so everything lays at Hoods door and Caisley's first act is to state nobody else is for sale and previous sales were done by the old chair, where he had no control, stating if he had control, he would not of allowed this to happen....etc, blah, etc, blah

Sounds like the perfect crime to me..............

Out of interest do we know where the club is in its quest for the second £1/2m, has it just stalled? I know fans are still doing bits James@odsal for one!

That's an interesting point Badger because it could easily be exactly the opposite. It could be Hood saying that Bateman is not for sale and if Caisley comes back then the onus will be on him not to sell. My feelings are that Hood will not sell, whilst making sure everyone is aware of the offers and then if CC comes back then he will have to make that decision, which if it is not the one the fans want, will immediately turn them against him and the Atkins/Bridge scenario will be brought out again, probably quite rightly.

Mick, if £250k saves the Club, then I'm sure the Bulls' fans would be prepared to raise that amongst themselves (again) rather than go into admin or sell Bateman. Going into admin would, I understand, lead to the sale of players on the cheap - catastrophic for us.
What about the Board launching a £ for £ investment arrangement between fans and investor. Get an interested party to invest £500k on condition that the fans raise another £500k. Surely an interested party would find a £1 million fund (from a committed fan base)attractive for a £500k investment. Conversely, would Bulls fans want to raise (again) £500k if they knew an investor would match it? I'd want to pledge again.

PS Bateman was advised to hold on until next year before re-negotiating his contract which is only sensible.

Having just given more than I could afford to something that was sold and heavily implied to be precisely that situation then they wouldn't get another penny out of me.

Must admit, im quite suprised we have made a bid after im sure i read something Tony Smith saying that he wasnt into taking advantage of a club in difficulty, im sure around the time Wakey were having issues.

What i would say though, if it wasnt for Wire selling Scuthorpe and Harris years ago, it was very possible the Warrington would not be in exsistance!! Needs must when clubs are in such a postion.......

Guess time will tell.....

That's the key point. Personally I hope Bateman stays with the Bulls - Wire have plenty of young back-row talent anyway. It remains a fact that selling Scully and Harris kept Wire in business, though, which I guess is why it might happen at Bradford.

Well we do know there was a bid in the past before any of this came up, and there's nothing there saying the other bid wasn't an improved offer at some other time before any of this came up.

vbfg, the last pledge was more of getting out of the clarts. This would be putting the Club on a prosperous financial footing and would help to ring-fence our young talent - too much of which is already in the other team's colours.

Fair enough, Smith strikes me as a man of his word, so would be logical, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors.........

I think he's a great prospect, and hope he stays with you guys, but if he did come to us obviously that would be a great signing for us.