This, a thousand times this.

This is promising, but could you just work seagulls and trawlers into it, maybe?

The key event, in all this, was when the RFL gave us after a request from our then-chairman Mr Hood, a secret £700k loan in September 2011

That screwed us completely. You could argue that they were trying to "protect" us, but it laid the way for the stripping of our last asset, and both the insolvency events since then.

Bottom line, the RFL £700k intervention got Bradford into that (2012) season and no more. Then all the rubbish about "competition integrity" kicked in.

Bradford lost their main asset, which the RFL took to cover their increasingly stupid looking decision to give us an unsecured loan. (6 months later the administrator offered creditors SFA. I've always wondered why he didn't look at the RFL deal which effectively made them preferred creditors to the detriment of the taxpayers & everyone else.)


Bradford built up another 8months of debt, thereby ensuring administration.

Bradford went to the fans, and used up all that goodwill.

If the RFL had said no in September 2011, Bradford would have entered administration in the preseason. With less debt, still holding an asset (so more attractive to investors - maybe a better quality of investor), and still able call on the fans goodwill.

That RFL intervention screwed us completely. Our directors must have made a compelling case. I don't know who to blame more for it. The directors who sold it to the RFL, or the RFL who bought it....

i cant give better answers than kinleycat has given

if they had said no in sept 2011, would it mean Bradford entered admin and hence the RFL would have had to revoke the 2012-2014 franchise 3 year SL licence

Ok so going by your summary the Bulls BOD were racking up unsustainable debt in 2011 which needed hushing up so as to avoid admin before the franchise period 2012-14?
This was agreed to by the RFL (thats dodgy to start with) and we all move on.
2012 it all hits the fan for admin 1 and since then its down to all the agreements in relation to admin 1 that has led to admin 2.
The fact that the RFL so covertly came to the Bulls aid (not a concert) has subsequently led to the problems two years down the line and ultimately with the new sanctions has made the club something of a basket case as far as a sale is concerned.
A quick question, which year did the Bulls first miss out on top eight rugby?
The reason i ask is that i have an aquintance that worked at the Bulls until they were made redundant in admin 1.
They told me at the point of missing out on the play offs that first time that the bulls were screwed financialy, and they could'nt believe that the club were spending in the way they were with such arrogance and disregard.
I was told this at the time not afterwards and i posted something to this end on our board if not on both.
I just wondered if there was a substantial gap between the first time you dropped out of the top 8 and 2011 because it seemed like quite a while between me being told this and that person being redundant.

We last made the 8 in 2008. We haven't been there since apart from 2012 when we had points deducted for going into admin and Wakefield took our place.

By that reckoning i think your then BOD were driving headfirst into what you are presently experiencing for far, far too long.

Undesputedly

Since around 2005/6 in fact, after the then board had spent all the assets buying success and then left. Financially, it's been firefighting ever since, and whilst the directors since have far from covered themselves with glory, they have certainly had a bit of a poisoned chalice to contend with.

You could say that we weren't actually protected but were beneficiaries of the RFL protecting themselves. It would have been hard to explain how they gave us a SL licence and then had us go under within 6 months ie Jan 2012 when they gave us the loan for the ground. (sorry I meant iconic ground)

Unfortunately they tried to fight the fire by throwing more bundles of cash on it

As ever it is hard to differentiate between the RFL helping themselves, helping a favourite or making a fudge of the whole shabang!!
Whichever way you look at it there help isn't always that helpful!!

It does seem evident that only true conspiracy theorists would believe that the RFL have favourites. All they are doing is constantly trying to cover up their own mistakes.

According to the T&A today, we have so far had £250,000 of this money. £50,000 held back until ownership resolved. Bulls have used the money to pay wages.
This blows a lot of the stories above out of the water.Especially the one about us getting absolutely nothing because we are in Admin.
Money distributed last month - at which point surely we could have been told.

Maybe it wasn't such a crazy idea after all...

There's a desk cleared at Odsal for you.

Bit of a long commute!

Excuses, excuses.

Does this now mean there is not enough money in the bank to cover this months wages??

ALSO- Is it bad press release to say RFL are paying last months wages or RFL stirring the pot some more??

It is clearly factualy incorrect to say the RFL are paying the wages. The administrator is paying wages using funds distributed to all clubs....like all clubs do, so we are using our own money that originated from sky via the rfl. Also, it says we have been using the £250K to pay wages, but it does not say we've used it up, for all we know that could last another couple of months? Certainly I'd guess it will be enough to get us to the point of new ownership, if a new owner stands up in a reasonable time frame (before the next home game would be my hope)

I can prove you talk !

and he simply made bad choices, imo, viewed of course with 20/20 hindsight. As for his successors, the one thing it shows, is that in desperate times, even people we might normally think of as staid and 'sensible' businessmen can turn to desperate measures.

We do judge on results though, so much as if, for example, Hood's desperate price reduction scheme had come off, we'd have regarded him as a visionary. History tells us it didn't though, so unfortunately he's yet another loser.

You would have to assume that is true Duckman or the Administrator wouldn't allow the club to trade. The one thing he certainly isn't is some kind of philanthropist.

The person who told me was right last time, i have no reason to doubt him.
As it stands there is not enough money in the pot to pay next months wages either so this will continue until a new owner is found or further assets will have to be sold.
This is what i have been told, you can believe it or not.