Spare a thought for moderators who don't have the luxury of an ignore button at all. We have to make do with 'ban' and 'warn'.....

It now appears they were trying to buy the club with no money. They were the same as Omar - no money. I am Bradford through and through but if we were broke how can we afford to sign 4-5 players in the pre-season? It seems like every pretend millionaire that has taken us over lately has followed the same business plan of spend what we don't have. It is time to stop this and start again in a lower division if a proper money man doesn't come along.

The quote was from MM, not me. Is he lying?


As you know the clubs often seek advances from the RFL and these are often provided, without publicity. As you know, there are obvious reasons why cash flow is extremely tight for whoever would be perating BB just ow, and a request for advances wouldn't be a shock.

But being the type of person you are, you instead refer to this as "getting out the begging bowl". You don't get why you are despised for doing this? Do you know what a "begging bowl" is? It is for gifts. As BB2014 asked for no gifts, YOU are lying. And you can't deny that.


A pointless conflation. The RFL's concern is the integrity of their competition. In the business world companies go into and out of administration all the time, and many creditors, including HMRC, are shafted and can do nothing about it. So the debts are most definitely NOT the debts of the Bradford Bulls, in the sense you state. You are again LYING.

The reason the RFL want them paying is not to make their competition look bad, and NOT because there is any liability. Indeed, the RFL specifically admit that the new club might go on without paying a penny, in SL, and be accepted as such and if that happens they dock points as a sanction.


Liar. What it did not contain was a specific guarantee to fully pay all creditors.


ST yes, but distribution absolutely not. That was announced, and then only in passing, in a press report last week. At which point, BB2014 had not been asked to agree to it (which they would have to do). Still, and to their credit, BB2014 would have gone ahead and run the club, despite all this, but it was the "special measures" thing that broke the camel's back. They felt badly let down and misled over the points, but that was not the key. Nor was paying off creditors, nor the Sky distribution.


FFS, as I keep saying (but you lknow) many clubs seek advances from time to time. And as I keep repeating, the special circumstances of BB2014 right now obviously to anyone have good and exceptional reasons why cashflow is exceedingly tight. It is a perfectly normal way to run a business. Even the biggest companies in the world rely on bank finance borrowings loans and overdrafts. Only a financial dunce would not know that.


But that is exactly what the budget does. Unless you believe they lodged a budget that showed a permanent deficit each year??

Let me ask you two questions:

1. If you were starting up a new business (which BB2014 are) do you think it would be unusual to go to a bank or finance house with your facts figures and business plan, details of how much money you needed to start up and going forward, and ask for a loan? (Clue: the answer is: No - that is how it invariably works)

2. If that business was the Bulls, and you had done a business plan with projections etc., and after you'd done the plan, that plan was scuppered by severe sanctions which meant that not only would the game change dramatically from what you planned as you were almost certain to face relegation, but also that for the foreseeable, you were effectively prevented from running your own business, what would you say?

Can't you just add an "exterminate" button?

Financing and running a business does not always mean having a few million in your own pocket to start with. They were trying to save the club. They are not a sugar daddy nor ever claimed to be. Some will now say that means I'm "an apologist" for them - but absolutely not, it is just they always made clear that they would do their best to run the business, but that they did not have pots of money to chuck in. So they are exactly what it said on the tin. We were under no illusions.

You want a sugar daddy, but it seems there isn't one spare.

If there is someone out there who wants to start a Bradford club to play from scratch in a lower division, then there isn't anything to stop them, regardless of the Bulls. Have a crack, if you fancy it. However it will be a sad day if the only way a club can play in SL is if it has "a proper money man" bankrolling it. What you mean is, the club would be in reality running at a huge operating loss, but nobody would care because somebody was ploughing the extra missing millions in. Are you a Chelsea fan?

minor point but the bb2014 didnt sign 4-5 players in pre-season. All the signing were made during last season by OK regime before he stepped down.

With all the sh=ite coming out on the forum at the moment can this be renamed Touching Cloth

You make statements that suggest you have seen the Bulls business plan submitted to the RFL. Have you or you just making assumptions to suit your POV?

I haven't seen it, but I have seen the statements from the RFL, which state that the new BoD's plan was flawed, that no payments to creditors or HMRC were to be made and that they had no confidence in the bid going forward (which I was amazed at, given they had picked BB2014 as the suceesful bid over Mr Lamb!!).

You are out of order calling me a liar, for using information in the public domain to form my opinion of the situation.

I can see why you feel the term "begging bowl" is emotive - fine, but to one minute say "we are solvent and don't need to sell players, they are ringfenced", to then be outed as asking for a 500k advance (which if given would leave you a hole further down the line), undermines the credibility of BB2014 totally.

It seems clear that BB2014 don't have the capital to buy and run the Bulls.

Have you actually seen the business plan?

Clearly you are not an adult as you suggest that it is normal for any household not to have a mortgage, credit cards, overdraft or hire purchase.

If you run a poll I'll put it forward after the result.
If you win of course

I have never stated that I have seen the business plan. Well, plans, there have been more than one.

You stated an untruth when you said the Bulls were "getting out the begging bowl". It simply has not happened. And seemingly was misleading too. It's not that that's "emotive", it's just not the truth. If you didn't mean to say the Bulls were begging ie for gifts, then you could say so and apologise, instead of crying about being called on it.

You have forgotten that it was not you, but the RFL and the administrator, who had to decide whether or not BB2014 had credibility and whether they had the funds to buy and run Bradford Bulls. The RFL and administrator plainly felt that they did, otherwise their bid (described in terms as "the strongest offer"icon_wink.gif was accepted. Therefore to reasonable people, it can't be "clear" at all. And many have now asked, including respected journalists, if the Bulls bid/plan really was that bad, why did the RFL until very recently seem to be steering and encouraging the new owners into place? Odd, that.

I also note you have declined to answer either of the 2 questions I posed for you.

Of course most households and businesses in this country fund themselves through borrowing of one sort or another, but these are dangerous tools to use if you don't have reasonable certainty you can meet the repayments. As they like to say in business schools "hope is not a strategy"

Haha. Now it's clear, you have no idea and are just wearing RAB coloured specs!

Despite you calling me and the RFL liars, you are right in stating it is not for me to decide the credibility of BB2014, but the RFL.

The RFL statement is clear in slating the BB2014 bid - it was full of holes.

And I am not crying, far from it, unlike Moore when he spat his dummy.

The most unequivocal and clear, factual information in all this has come from the RFL statement. It damns BB2014 and leaves no doubt about their credibility. None whatsoever.

The point is that the information is NOT in the public domain. The information is the business plan and nobody on this forum has probably seen it. What is in the public domain is a statement from the RFL saying the plan was flawed and one from MM saying the opposite. What I don't understand is that the RFL board brought in a fabulous sponsorship sponsorship deal with Eddie Stobart that simply resulted in several lorries being painted. They then held a world cup that they couldn't get any sponsorship deal at all. And the brought in a two division competition that turns into three and then god knows what happens. I know which statement I believe.

It's quite staggering how the RFL have gone from commercially incompetent and not fit to run the sport to the best judge of a business plan and the source of infallible truths in a week. Did they hire someone new

So t'Bulls need to cut their cloth for a happy ending?

Got it.

Someone call Barbara [uTaylor[/u-[uBradford[/u.

Ahh, I'm hilarious.

I asked you a question couple of days ago and I'm still waiting for your answer.How come you have posted more times on here in last 48 hours than any of us Bulls fans have.I think we all know the answer don't we

Closet Bull

I don't think they hired someone new it's just that someone different got involved. After months of negotiation and guidance from Solly and Rimmer BB2014 finally saw Nigel (the fat controller) last Monday for the first time when he sat on the whole scheme. It would seem that Big Nige knows where the bodies are buried and nobody can stand against him. Seem to remember that Ceausescu thought the same. it would be unchristian to hope he meets the same fate.

My word. Not sure about the specs thing, but you noticed that I'm a Bradford fan! Well done! But yes, I do have an idea. What an odd remark. On what do you base your clarity?


I pointed out untruths you had written. You haven't contested that, nor have you apologised for it. I'll leave folk to draw their own conclusions.


The holes in the RFL statement, though, we can safely ignore can we? The fact that it doesn't actually address most of the criticisms made by MM? Then we have the strange situation that the RFL, if MM is to be believed (and I note he made the claim in a written press statement not off the cuff) that the RFL did not see the latest business plan as they did not want to look at it and so they wouldn't know if it was good bad or indifferent.

In some ways the RFL statement is clear but in others it is mystifyingly silent, or obtuse. I don't know who is lying as I wasn't at the meeting. But someone is.


So glad. You don't half do a good impression.


And every word "could" be true. Or it could all be lies, or disinformation, or both. But you automatically swallow every word, and automatically reject therefore every word in the BB statement, yet admitting you have no basis on which to do so. Yet you're the one who berates Bulls fans for in your opinion swallowing every line as long as it comes from the Bulls.

You don't answer questions, and you ignore the elephant in the room - if the RFL thought the new owners were so bad, why have they been doing such a great impression for weeks that they were everyone's preferred option? Why have they led BB2014 up the garden path? Why have they not directly commented on most of the substantial allegations made by MM?

I'd also like to add...



Te statement regarding the request for a loan of 500k (I think it came from Blake Solly) came at a time that Martyn Sadler who is completely independent of this was saying (and not in response to said statement) that the club had actually requested that they sprea this years deduction in sky money over a period of five or six years on Radio Leeds.

This is information in the public domain that discredits RFL.

It comes off the back of what we now know we're disingenuous statements regarding the reasons behind the purchase of te Odsal lease.

Also Rimmer's emotive rant about safeguarding the integrity of the game without actually addressing any of MM's criticisms is te oldest trick in the book.

The only reasonable conclusion I personally can draw from the information in the public domain does not look good for RFL's credibility and therefore the integrity of the game.

The blame is at the foot of the various people that have run the club over the years up to this point and who did what when well never know. But IMO the level to which the RFL are culpable must be investigated in the interest of the whole sport.

Fans of other clubs moaning about hat they see as apparent special treatment must also want this too?!?

Fans of other clubs had every right to be aghast at the actions of the RFL over the stadium. I am still astonished that they were able to get away with that without greater fallout. Since then the club has been enveloped in a fog of misinformation and half truths that makes it impossible for any outsider to form an accurate judgement on the actions taken by the various parties including the RFL and the other clubs.

But the withdrawal of the Sky money does seem to me to be akin to throwing a drowning man a lifebelt, but with a huge lead weight attached. It must have been bleeding obvious that it would be impossible for an already hugely loss making company to survive such a draconian penalty. None of the prospective owners have deep pockets. The best that could be expected was for them to make the savings necessary to eliminate the previous losses, there was never any realistic prospect of them also making up the loss of Sky funding.

At the moment I really wish the RFL had let the club go under during the Hood regime. It would have avoided the waste of the fans £500k, perhaps more importantly would avoided the drain on the enthusiasm of the fans to start again. If we had gone bust two years ago I think there might have been a chance of the club starting again at a lower level. Now I don't.

Exactly if RFL thought fit to put BB2014 into special measures for the integrity of the game why did they not put BBholdings into special measures instead of handing out 700k unsecured loans in secret to allow them to flog season tickets at less than half price? Whilst BBHoldings were telling everyone that the higher uptake in tickets and merchandise more than covered the cost of course (I have the Rlw article at home on that one) - even though RFL knew what was really going on.

I agree. Sadly the damage is done now.

Maybe just a closet?