Somebody is keeping us afloat this season. They have to be - the numbers just don't add up otherwise.
If it's the RFL then you'd have to ask why they would do such a thing if they wanted us gone.
I can't see the benefit of them owning the leasehold to a stadium with no tenant in it, so the Odsal motive doesn't work unless I'm missing something.

Chalmers and Lowe don't have the funds to do it themselves I don't think.

So what's going on? It's baffling.

We end up back at conspiracy theories.

Whatever is going on this season seems to be a write off barring some sort of miracle that exceeds all other RL related miracles I've seen in 30+ years.

So I'm sticking with the U19s for now.

I think it's the one armed man on the grassy knoll.

The man from Mongo has been a good friend to Cha-low.

This is no conspiracy theory, but a straightforward answer to your straightforward question. I don't know, and am unlikely to ever find out, but whatever else, the Bulls being in the Champ this season saved the RFL a whole shedload of grief. Fact.

Was that enough to merit helping keep us afloat? Maybe it was. What is NOT a theory but is a fact, this decision most certainly didn't do us any favours. Many peoples' worst fears about it seem to be being realised, and the likelihood of disaster was not that hard to predict. Have the RFL got form for sticking the knife in to the Bulls? Well, yes. We were on the point of folding, on the last day, OK agreed to take the club on, and at the eleventh hour the RFL suddenly moved the goalposts massively and insisted on confiscating one year's funding. Again, simple fact. And people have said OK was 'foolish' or whatever to agree to that - but another simple fact is, had he not done so, then the club would have closed down then and there. Which was essentially why he signed. The RFL would have thus signed our death warrant on that fateful evening so don;t anyone tell me they wouldn't do it, they clearly were fully ready to do it.

Add to that the farrago when OK did a deal to sell his shares to Moore & Co., but they then refused to pay. Story was that someone from the RFL had told them they didn't have to. I have no knowledge of if that's true but then again we heard recently that even this season the RFL had apparently helped themselves to was it 100K of our pittance of funding to pay the former company's "rugby debts".

And were the RFL instrumental in us ending up with owners that don't show any sign of putting in the sort of money which could have saved us?

Like I say I'm certainly no conspiracy theorist but my personal impression is that we've been getting a good kicking for a while now. And whatever else, none of this is inconsistent with what I was told.

Odsal is clearly worth a lot of money for whatever reason. I mean, if it wasn't, why would Green make persistent efforts to buy it? Why would the RFL buy the lease? Circling predators? But there would not be any predators circling or otherwise unless there was a tasty large meal in the offing so to me that just reinforces the firm belief that Odsal is a lucrative target, and all the more so when the rugby covenant shorty expires.

But the rugby 'covenant' doesn't expire, FA. All that expires is the pay-back clause under the Odsal Settlement agreement - the 'covenant', if it exists at all, is just down to the council and whatever decision they come up with. The RFL are leasing a rugby ground and, as it is, presumably have to hand back a 'rugby ground', at the end of their tenancy.

I confess to knowing little of legalities, where as I'm certain you do, but I'd have thought that, unless the terms of the lease say otherwise, the freeholder would have a pretty big say in what "permanent" changes can be made to the ground?

If Koukash is financing them and in turn the Bulls, what's the motive - altruism, a way of owning two clubs, a loan with interest or something altogether more worrying like a merger?

That's my theory if there's anything in it.

Another Shuddersfield or maybe a Gateshull?

I have two questions - my apologies if they have already being discussed -
1. If the RFL have withheld funding from a different company to pay off debts from a new one does that mean we have paid off some of our debtors and thus the 12 points for paying off creditors is a little more harsh? Surely if other creditors are being penalised and small businesses going under due to the old companies dealings is this not why we got 12 points because we did not pay our debts off? So how can they justify penalising a new company to make amends for a different one?

2. If this is the case and the administration and debtors are lodged would this be classed as an unfair advantage to creditors if some are paid differently? is this legal? surely a review may say that all creditors should have received an equal amount of this 100k windfall not just a chosen few?

May sound dumb but as per usual with the bulls and the RFL involvement in administration some things just never add up.

With Robbie Paul now involved at Salford (albeit a consultant) and the Salford staff now over at the Bulls, that's the picture emerging for me too



The Red Bulls anyone?

I'll need a lot of vodka to swallow that. Then again, once this season tickets expired I am done. All enjoyment of RL has been finally destroyed this year....

Right, back to the IOM TT. Go Dean Harrison!!!!! A rare Bradford success story.

Meanwhile what? Do we go and watch a doomed team head for relegation? If there is a plan behind the scenes it makes this season rather academic. If no big changes come until 2019 it makes next year academic too. Is Marwan or whoever likely to want to keep us above water in C1 playing in front of 500 fans?

Would he want to subsidise a team shorn of any remaining talent, in a money pit stadium, with most fans walking away (when he's p1ssed at the Salford attendances) with a mountain to climb to get any good will back?

He was my maths lecturer at Liverpool Poly and he's not bad at the old adding up malarky he'l know the only way to save the place would be to do a Toronto in L1. No-one wanted to throw that kind of cash at us in SL. I'd seriously doubt there's now a volunteer to do it in the Chip Shop league.

Unless of course the lease will pass to Koukash's name....

The land & the lease are both supposed to have significant value. Estimates of value have not been made public yet I don't think. But obviously the RFL and the council both want part of the windfall. And neither seem keen to put in the cash primer needed to release the value. The mythical 3rd partner would obviously want a return on his cash as well. And those percentages I would assume are the sticking point.
Bradford Bulls are merely an afterthought.

If the merger went ahaed we could have the Brad from Bradford and the Ford from Salford and call ourselves BradFord

Genius!

Our neighbors wouldn't like it - how would they cope changing the FUD to Ford? it would take an enormous amount of campaigning to attract the fans existing and recently left and for the parochial traditionalists to recognize our new club as a separate entity!

Worst part of a merger would mean we'd have to stop taking the pee out of the Huddersfield-Sheffield Giants. That's been one of our best weapons over the last 20 years and it would be blunted.

What if it went the other way though and we had the Sal from Salford and the Ford from Bradford? It would be a real ta to be called SalFord

If no-one was looking, could we pick up the AJ Bell stadium and plonk it down at Odsal at the same time?

But it wouldn't matter because then nobody would go.

When people ask about the owners willingness to spend and people ask what forwards are available, Hull KR just signed Lee Jewitt very good signing for them

Apparently Chris Bridge is due to retire at the end of the year because he is struggling with injuries. Presumably he will be our first signing for next year then.

It might prove difficult getting quality players to sign up to the cause. I would imagine playing for Bradford is no longer an attractive proposition for a good player with no baggage. KR on the other hand are most definitely challenging for super league status and will most likely achieve it by the end of the middle eights.

Slightly off topic I know, but coming up to close of play on Wednesday and still no word on Chisholm. I find it very hard to believe they still don't know the extent of his injury, which makes me fear even more that the Fax fan claiming he's out for the season was actually right