It would have been ok to hand over the 2 years of Sky money if, as was the understanding were going to go through the licensing process for the next 3 years at the end of term. However, if you change the goal posts, you cant expect to apply the same financial fine for different rules for relegation promotion.

The RFL are certainly procrastinating with the Giants issue, it would not surprise me if they wait till the end of the regular season for a points deduction or fine.

As I understood it, some of the owners of clubs which run at a loss and have to be supported by said owner, thought that Bradford going into administration and effectively walking away from debts without financial penalty was giving Bradford an unfair advantage.

As they saw it, it would save them money if they funded their clubs less, built up debts, then bought the club cheaply from administration. Instead of the owner losing money, it would be the taxpayer (usually the biggest creditor) losing money.

This was the RFL & club chairmen compromise deal to make the 2nd scenario unpalatable to club chairmen.

As a franchise system is a closed membership (invitation only) they could withhold 1 full year Sky money ( but spread over 2 years).

Changing it to P/R does give the opportunity to challenge I would think.

I thought there were laws against the same directors going into admin and then starting the same operation all over again under a different name to escape the debts? Cannon and Ball spring to mind, weren’t they disqualified from being directors for that very reason? If that sort of practice isn’t illegal then I can understand other clubs wanting to guard against it. However in our case that didn’t even happen as the new company doesn’t have any connection with the last in terms of directors or shareholders?

I’m confused.

Rarely post these days but as a Bulls supporting actor once said "my dander is well and truly up!" Some or all of this may have be mentioned but there ya go. Just hoping it will make me feel a bit better but I bet it won't.

At the last fans forum GS stated that the club were going to seek legal advice re the sharing of the Sky money amongst the other clubs. I got the impression that he was saying that in the light of the reintro of promotion/relegation because, as has been stated many times recently, the goalposts have definitely been moved and it is not a level playing field. Whilst (thankfully) I'm not a lawyer, the original decision to deprive the club of said money and redistribute it was nothing short of extortion - basically, "pay up or you don't come in". From everything I have read and heard there was nothing official to it and it has set a terrible precedent, where certain Super League chairmen/club owners are calling the shots and the RFL are exposed as weak and frightened. The greatest sport in the world led by complete clowns! The other clubs have essentially started down the road of creating a cartel and the whole thing flies in the face of the spirit of competion law. In one way, I really do hope the club goes down the road of legal exploration, although that would obviously be expensive, depending on the level of resistance encountered. However, after the Hudds/Mason debacle I think most clubs might be wary of an impending courtroom wrestle when all they need to do is cough up a mere £50kish each to make a huge potential nightmare for themselves and the sport go away. You would think that by now even the most autocratic and obstinate of club chairmen must recognise that it was an act of folly to allow themselves to be led into a decision that was opportunistic and greedy and driven, by individuals who clearly have little or no regard to the consequences of their autocratic actions. Just how and why did the RFL sit back and allow this to happen??? Are they and the other clubs not guilty of bringing the game into disrepute?

The Kopczack cock-up is a different pit of vipers, and one which affects the reputation of the game I love in a big way. As a previous poster stated, if the RFL let this one slide they will be setting a huge and immensely damaging precedent. Furthermore, does not the whole sequence of events (from CK's 'loaded' walkout to Mason's contrived dimissal and subsequent court hearing) contain collectively, the ingredients of fraud and conspiracy? Something definitely there for the lawyers to chew over I think.

That's all except Leeds then?



I can see their point if that is the case.



I'm not sure what point you trying to make here. Are you saying all owners except Leeds thought they would follow the Bradford model?



Again I am not clear, the club chairmen made it unpalatable to themselves?

I think Highlander was saying that to avoid clubs taking the route of adminsitration to clear accumulated debts they decided to penalise any club going into administration a years Sky money on top of a points deduction.

I cannot imagine any of our upstanding clubs trying such a ploy, it is almost as silly as suggesting the Chancellor and BoE were colluding to push up inflation to reduce the deficit?

But surely this strategy of punishing a club for going into administration by punishing the person who gets it out of the mess is misguided? In our case the punishment is meted out to those who had nothing to do with going into admin in the first place.

It’s like if I got caught speeding, my car gets taken off me by the police and sold and the new owner of my car gets the fine!

If Caisley had taken over I could partly understand this as he was party to many of the decisions that led to the downfall of the old club and was the major shareholder. But this didn't happen.

It just makes me all the more suspicious that certain clubs (not all) would like to see us out of the picture completely and are engineering a situation that they can benefit from.

Agreed, and also the basic argument is based on a false premise; namely that Old Bulls had an unfair advantage, because what they should have been paying on debts/tax/VAT etc they supposedly were spending on the team. Well, given that we haven't qualified for the playoffs since about 1572 then it's not easy to see just what the advantage was!

So what is to stop teams repeatedly going into admin & just handing over to a white knight completely debt free? It is the club, not OK personally, who gets the fine. If he chooses one of his companies to pay the fine that's his business. No-one has yet answered my questions - did Ok offer or agree to the forfeit as a condition & did it enable Bradford to keep their squad?

The fact it was agreed to is well known TT, and I'm sure you know that already as it's been mentioned enough times on this board.

It still doesn't answer point about bringing in this new and quite heavy 'fine', C £1.2m and is a lot of dosh, whilst at the same time keeping stum that the way the league would deal with relegation was changing to one where not having sufficient funds was going to make it very difficult to sustain the status just re-gained, seems a tad unethicial; indeed it could be argued that Omar Khan was sold the club under false pretenses.

Maybe the "loose a years Sky money" sanction was put in place to deter pre-pack administration where the existing owners manage to buy back the operation sans debt. I this case an unconnected person - OK came to the rescue and was subject to the "fine" to keep the SL status. The other chairman then decided to pocket the windfall and also change the rules on entry to the "SL club" but I assume OK would have been involved in the decision on the new structure which was made recently - though the potential cut in the number of clubs has been trailed for some time.

No the 6 ( six ) super league titles

Joe,you idiot

yes, but not losing money. That appears to have been a special, new punishment for us. Maybe the next club which has to go through what we did will get an even bigger 'fine', who knows with policy made up on the hoof. I don't think it's too far fetched to imagine that the next 'white knight' may well look at what happened in our case and say, "I don't think I'll bother, if that's all the 'help' we'll get".

I think the potential cut in numbers has indeed been on the cards a while, but certainly not they way that cut was going to be decided. In any case, whilst I've no idea how the club voted it was only 1 in 14, so a vote against would have been unlikely to have stopped it being passed.

You get the feeling that narrow minded self interest is the main driver for the clubs and most of them probably took the view - we will stay up so more money for us. Most of the comments seem to be supportive with only London expressing unease (cannot imagine why).

Perhaps the restructuring proposals are too timid and they should have gone for a regional super dopper league to raise the standard and intensity of the game's premier offering to pull in more national sponsorship/TV cash , but on the proviso that a % of the revenue went back into supporting the existing clubs

I think a regional [and smaller 'super league' would definitely raise standards but would have the opposite effect on sponsorship and TV cash. Being, or trying to appear, a national competition is going to sell more Sky dishes and products in general than a York/Lancs league - however super duper.

Yorkshire (1st obviously!), Lancashire, Cumbria, London, Wales and the Basques - like the IPL in cricket, maybe Scotland and Ireland. I will change my login to the Northernradicalrelic - though the intellegence services might put me under watch

What makes you think we're not already being watched..............



[size=50I'll stick the word bomb in here to see if it elicits a response, if you don't hear from me for a while check the newspapers and give my MP a ring, if you don't mind, as I may be 'care of Guantanamo Bay'..[/size

Exactly.

Actually I didn't. I haven't read every post on this thread but none that I have read mention it. They are mostly accusations of cruelty & moral corruption against the obviously incompetent RFL. I read about it on the VT thread yesterday.

If OK was unaware of the discussions he hadn't done adequate research.

. It is that aspect I disagree with.

I disagree with P&R in SL in principle though as there were numerous sages screaming for it as the saviour of RL there can be few complaints if the RL & chairmen voted for it. Presumably Sutcliffe lobbied on behalf of the Bulls.

I don't really think P&R is suitable for the top division and never will be when there are only part time teams in the division below. Whilst franchising has had quite a few problems as well, it has rid the game of the the problem of teams coming up a going down the following season - a situation which does no-one any good in my opinion.

Maybe we could split the difference and have a season of P&R and then consider them in situ for three seasons to allow the promoted club to get up to speed. A bit like now but instead of the licensing committee, you win your three year deal in SL by being fortunate enough to be the top team in the appropriate year. It must be a better idea than one up and one down every season.

The problem I see with that is everyone would throw their all at year 3 rather than build gradually which is the current intention. If there was no other criteria other than getting most points I cannot see how most teams could survive on crowds of 2,000. The present system is imperfect but I cannot come up with a better one.

being top mark?