So put it down in simple black and white on here then

Away you go

I think this assumes status quo too much. Yes the Bulls where loss making under the last regime. But we have no idea on the costs and what is a fixed cost and what is a cost that can be changed or stopped.

Whilst profit and loss is not just governed by the revenue side of the equation. Unless you know the costs too, then it's impossible to say whether those costs would transfer on mass to the new owners.

You can say with some certainty that some of the costs will no longer be incurred.

The Bulls did have an overdraft which they had to pay back, so there will no longer be interest and charges as that overdraft is gone. There may have been other loans, such as directors loans with interest to pay back, these may also be gone, there could have been accumulated interest on unpaid bills, to other business' or lines of credit etc.

Put simply unless you can see the books it's impossible to tell whether Bulls RLFC can opperate without a sugar daddy or how much that input would need to be. A sugar daddy may want to put in thousands for their love of the club, but millions may not be feasable.

Thats a fair enough description , It is always just a bit worrying when a new to RL/Sport investor is being touted as a new owner , no matter what your backround , or how good a supposed businessman you are , nothing can prepare you to run what is 90% of the time a loss making black hole , so as long as the new owners fully understand what is expected of them , then fine

The reality of the situation is that in almost all cases , the on field success of the club cannot finance the running of the club , and any new owners must be prepared to put cash in , and quite probably more than they are estimating right now

I've never agreed with the 'oblivion' bit, to be honest.

The [ibottom[/i line isn't (and never was) that we start next season with [ianything[/i "like the club we have at the moment", but that the club dies, as 1963, and comes back from "not owning so much as a bootlace" to having a team on the bottom rung of the RL ladder. Retaining an SL licence, along with the finance and management to run a club in that division is certainly a line, bit it's far from the [ibottom[/i line.

Like '63, it would need fans and local businesses to coalesce around a symbol, just as they did around Trevor Foster and Joe Phillips to form a new team for 1964. Yes, things have changed and it certainly isn't 1963/4 but where there is the will, the way can be found and with the support base around this club the money for a new start at that level is more than possible.

The big £2.4 million loss in 2011 was due to playing at Widnes all year. The club was helped by the fact that it was expected and so it was budgeted for. But there is no doubt that running a club at Knowsley Road was tough because of the poor facilities. We just couldn't get the revenue streams that we have now.

McManus is someone who should be listened to. We were on the verge of administration when he came in. We now have shareholder funds of over £20 million as a result of taking ownership of Langtree Park. He has also put together a strong board of directors including Mike Coleman (some hedge fund manager in Singapore) who put about £6 million into the club to finance the final instalment and fit out cost of the stadium. The financial performance in 2013 should be a lot better.

As a saints fan, I hope you do come through it and I look forward to visiting Odsal next season.

Just out of interest, what do you think should happen to the next club that hits a financial wall?

A Financial Wall? What does that mean? Explain yourself, put up with facts or shut up

I was asking the neutral Saints fan

Well, its a tough one isn't it. If a club does hit a financial wall and goes into administration, then they should be given a period of time to find new owners who are fit for purpose. If they can't then I think the only solution is to move them out of Superleague and into another division where the running costs are more affordable.

Overall, we need to urgently look at the way in which our sport is financed and governed. Clearly the whole licensing system needs to be strengthened in terms of the financial requirements for being a superleague club. I still dont understand why your problems wern't spotted when the licenses were reviewed last time. Any thoughts or are you all still in the dark about that?

You just described Bradfords plight. Are you saying one rule for Bradford and a different rule for "lesser" clubs?

I want Bradford to survive and be in SL, but don't believe that they should be made a special case

Probably for the same reason that the massive annual losses of the likes of Hudds, London, and - yes - Saints - did not seem to count against those clubs, even though (except for Hudds, where I believe Davy has made proivision) if something should happen to the rich owners they would almost certainly be up shìt creek almost immediately.

The elephant that was in the room then is still there, and if anything has grown even bigger. And it is standing on the same foundations of sand it ever was.

I'm an ex Leigh fan, not a Bulls fan, and I like you dont understand how less than 12 months earlier, this wasnt picked up by the licencing process, my other question is, are the RFL just now accepting the best available bid? , even if it isnt up to the original standard set, as that seems the case to me

Gareth (G1) is a Leeds fan, not a Bulls fan.

He is usually quite sensible, although he can't help trying to be clever on occasions. In fairness, he does spend a fair bit of his time in public service, winding up the great unwashed fekkwitery on Substandard which he can do in his sleep, so I guess we can make allowances?

No. IMO the RFL have known exactly what they were doing all along, and have contrived to totally sideline the administrator. Its actually pretty unprecedented that an administrator has been rendered so powerless?

Absolutely not. I was just stating my opinion. What I said in my post goes for any club, not just Bradford. I don't want to see any current Superleague club leave the competition. They should all go through the same process. Perhaps you should put your glasses on and read my post again!

I will try and find out at my club end of season dinner

I know all of the clubs you have mentioned did have massive losses, but the problems at Bradford where clearly a hell of a lot worse. I was just wondering why they wern't flagged up.

No they were not.

It looks like our operating loss in 2011 was c.£1m (which if Hood had been honest about earlier it might have saved us all a hell of a lot of heartache). That followed a loss of £0.3m in 2010, and break even and profits in previous years. At the time of the Licensing decisions, we were noit that far into 2011.

Now go compare that with the financial performance of some of our contemporaries.

Their losses were far worse.

The only difference is that we had to stand on our own feet, whereas those other clubs had a wealthy owner prepared to pay the bills. Why did the RFL not baulk at granting THEM Licences, given that in some cases the sudden demise of the owner would have led to the sudden demise of the club? Same reason: they can see the elephant in the room even if some others cannot. They know just how precarious the game is placed financially, and what would happen if one of the dominoes was to fall...

McManus [iis[/i someone who should be listened to. But not to directly take tips on how to run a self-sustaining RL club, Langtree Park notwithstanding. The increase in shareholders' funds at St Helens has arisen due to newly subscribed capital rather than through profits. His greatest success has been the Bulls' greatest failure - the ability to find another person or persons willing to stump up the millions of pounds required to prop up almost every Super League club.

Exactly my point, and the point that Gareth has missed. He's managed what the likes of Davy and Hughes, and Pearson and Wilkinson have not. Caddick managed it as well, in a different way.

I think that you have misunderstood the point that I was trying to get across.

Its not just about the loss and the size of the loss, its also about the ability to cover those losses and stay afloat. Other clubs, like Saints, who had a loss of £2.4 million in 2011, were able to cover them and continue running as normal. Unfortunately, your club wasn't. That is what I meant when I said that Bradford's problems were worse. There was clearly a bigger problem at Bradford; hence why they are now in administration and other clubs are not.

Or in simple terms, to be a succsesful SL club, you need a sugar daddy, it was the lack of a single large financial backer that made the Fax application ' speculative '

What has now become even clearer is that the sustainability of many clubs is not through trading/revenue streams, but assisted capital finance in various guises

I don't know how you can just dismiss the stadium so quickly. The whole point about the new stadium was to provide the club with a strong financial and operating platform to take the club forward, strengthen the commercial side of the business and therefore make the club a self-sustaining RL club. It is an important element.

The club has no bank debt whatsoever and McManus said recently: "we are already seeing a very substantial improvement in financial performance, and this will strengthen even more materially in 2013. We are also likely to see a further strengthening of our balance sheet in 2012 and beyond as the stadium's fit out costs are capitalised".

It's not about stumping up millions of pounds to 'prop up' a club, it's called investment. The results speak for themselves.

Yeah, yeah - look, if the cash from directors had been left in the top half of the Balance Sheet as loans rather than the bottom half of the Balance Sheet as share capital the company would be the most technically insolvent in the league.

Langtree Park is a great stadium and hopefully will turn the business around into profitable or break even in its own right but it would never have been built in a normal business environment as there were no retained profits to pay for it (quite the opposite) and there is no way it will pay itself back in a way that would ever be commercially acceptable.