Far more questions than answers to arise from this. Hard to predict the future course for Odsal based on the information already released.

Be interesting to see what the RFL's intentions are but, realistically, does this take the Bulls any closer to being a financially viable rugby league club. I'm not sure it does and that's why I remain worried.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what's in the detail.

i hope that the rfl are more successful with this involvement than they were with bailing out the hull sharks & gateshead also the farcial huddersfield/sheffield affair, more recently the money invested in the celtic crusaders

maybe you will now be referred to as "the rfl's club" rather than your self acclaimed title of "the peoples club"

bloody favouritism if you ask me

I am less worried now than I was before.

I am assuming this is part of a wider arrangement that helps ensure our financial survival and - hopefully - a more sustainable platform on which to build for the future. Nothing else makes any sense. That has to be a reason for some relief, I would say?

Mr Hood has repeatedly said that our long lease is tantamount to owning the freehold. And you can sell a long leasehold in a similar way you can sell a freehold. So I see no contradiction between us previously holding a long lease and us being reported as having sold (our interest in) Odsal.

Lots more I could speculate about, including especially the reasons and urgency behind this from both parties' perspectives. But I think much of that is best done in private. And hopefully having gained some more background and explanation, so less is left to speculate about!

btw, I suspect the deals were done several weeks ago.

Was it? Pray enlighten us when that happened? I think we all must have missed it.

My take on it is;

[uBefore[/u

Freehold - Bradford Council
}
Tenant - Bradford Bulls (paying pepercorn rent on fully repairing and insuring lease)

[uNow[/u

Freehold - Bradford Council
}
Head Tenant - The RFL (paying pepercorn rent more than likely on an FRI lease)
}
Sub Tenant - Bradford Bulls (paying market value on a lease with unknown to us repairing obligations)


I guess this deal had little to do with Bradford City Council (though they will have had some involvement) but more to do with a deal between the bulls and the RFL. Long term pepercorn leases have a lot of value and it looks to me like the Bulls have assigned there lease to the RFL which will have seen a cash sum given to the bulls by the RFL (possibly the reason behind all this stability talk) with a view to the Bulls now paying market back to the RFL.

As I see it we get a cash injection short term but will now pay a much higher rent, and I assume our repairing obligations are still the same.

So the Bulls free up some cash that must be required and the RFL have a nice investment on there portfolio. Obviously favourable for both parties but I think the real question is why are we prepared to pay much more rent long term just to free up cash in the short term, are our books really that bad?

A very apt link to an auction site for Bulls fans...

[url=http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BEANIE-HAT-BRADFORD-BULLS-RUGBY-LEAGUE-BANKRUPT-STOCK-BRAND-NEW-/300651239390?pt=UK_Rugby_Shirts&hash=item460035d7de#ht_500wt_1287Bulls hats for sale!![/url

Bargain!!!

In the future the RFL have aspirations to develop Odsal and make it RL national stadium,fine it would be marvelous,but can they generate that kind of finance?

feel free to contact chris caisley regarding his proposterous claim any time you wish adey,if you can find him

Good point and yes, this would only make proper sense as part of an arrangement to ensure the Bulls financial survival. After all, it is in the RFL's interest to safeguard one of the biggest names in the sport.

There are many other issues applicable to the game in general, some of which you have covered at length, which would need to be resolved before clubs like Bradford could become fully competitive and sustainable.

Obviously I'm not party to the RFL's plans but helping to prop a club up would not be sufficient in a league where several teams operate in such a ridiculously unsustainable way, safe in the knowledge that a sugar daddy is holding the safety net.

Could the predatory approaches be something to do with the shenanigans that have been occurring at Valley Parade.

Let me provide a hypothetical scenario

Bantams are unhappy at VP rent and threaten to leave. Odsal is their bargaining chip.
VP owners sense opportunity to take Odsal off cash strapped councils hands. The Bantams and Bulls would then be at the mercy of VP owners who could close Odsal and offer it up for redevelopment. Bulls and Bantams would be forced to then play at VP or cease to exist.
Bulls approach RFL who see that this could threaten the existence of a famous club and venue. They therefore gazump VP owners, saving the Bulls and Odsal, and also while we are at it inadvertently helping the Bantams.

I really don't know what to make of this, to say I am shocked is an understatement.
It sounds like good news on the surface, but there may be more to it then meets the eye.
It does sound like an pretty good bit of work by the Bulls board though.

Oh and how does Roger know stuff?

You are not paying attention Jonesy.

I'll ask you again: when was that said?

Clue: Caisley never said those words, nor did anyone else to my knowledge.

When you finally realise where you went wrong, I'll explain (again) what it was all about.

A positive side though - now we are the RFL's favourites, at leaset we won't get any repeat of the Millennium debacles. Our Sugar Daddy will see us right.

Where that otherwise quite plausible scenario falls down IMO (and its not the first time Bulls have been the sacrificial lamb in a bigger game involving BCFC and VP and the council) is that the council still owns (or did) the freehold. Bulls had a very long lease at peppercorn rent, which may or may not be tied in with the Odsal Settlement agreement and its conditions (we don't know). Odsal costs the council nothing nowdays, and if it sold the freehold the new owner would still have a sitting tenant paying a peppercorn rent only. So there would seem to be no need to take Odsal off anyone's hands, and no obvious benefit to the new owner if they did or to the council either.

What we don't know is whether there were any impediments to the Bulls selling or assigning (I'm not sure what the strict legal term would be in this case) the long lease to a third party, without the council's consent. I can't see there would be none, since the Bulls could then just sell the land for development and decamp to VP or elsewhere?

So I have to conclude that the council were both party to and concurred with this transaction. And you will see the council have taken a charge out over the Bulls interests in the new "underlease" (there are existing charges, including from the RFL, over the assets generally), which sort of proves they had at least some involvement?

Maybe predators were hovering in the event that Bulls fell over? And maybe this transaction - or, more particularly, the terms of the new "underlease" - have stymied that possibility?

That MAY explain the "predators" comment that has bemused quite a few people. Or then again it may not!

Which smacks of favouritism towards one club under the said governing body. Something you lot have claimed for years towards the Rhinos. Oh the irony

The RFL has an invested interest in the success of the bulls. Not a good look for the game. But very funny!

Any more than the favouritism it showed Crusaders when loaning them money or seconding staff to them to try and help them get out of the hole? And indeed, allowed a totally new entity to take over the franachise?

Or to Wakey when they gave them the smallest available points deduction and fast-tracked the new ownership? And indeed, allowed a totally new entity to take over the franchise?

Or London when they allowed a new phoenix club to rise and...yes...allowed a totally new entity to take over the SL slot?

Or the bust Huddersfield, when they sanctioned the takeover by Sheffield but allowed it to remain as Huddersfield?

Or what went on with Hull FC a few years ago?

Rather than "favouritism", maybe say instead "saving"?

btw Wilks. What would happen to Rhinos if Caddick plc went bust? Or Hudds if Davy suddenly pulled out? Or Hull FC if Pearson did? Or London if Hughes did? And so on? There is a very large elephant in the room that is conveniently ignored by so many.

Adey, I salute you

good analysis, without the need for predators, just bad books. If on the other hand the only offer on the table was from a predator then there could be risk of the contingent liability crystallising which would be even worse than another bad set of accounts. Not only does this deal provide stability, it means full concentration on getting the team successful again without distraction. Full credit to Hood for running with the ball when no one else would.

This is wrong, so wrong what kind of precedent is this setting???
I don't care the ground has history so did Station Road, Watersheddings, Thrum Hall, Central Park and Knowsley Road but all these clubs at those grounds had to do it the hard way and raise their own money to fund new grounds or move to grounds shared with football clubs and improve them.
Plus how come they have done this with OUR money, that is the fans and other clubs money when the RFL won't even give Championship clubs any of the Premier Sports money, it stinks.

No coincidence that Fat Controller comes from Bradford then never heard of a 'vested interest'???

Plus the ground was a public owned 'assset' are the local council taxpayers happy they have subsidised (yet again didn't the Council pay for the improvements a few years ago and that block at the far end?) the RFL and a professional rugby club? Any public asset should be put on the open market when being cashed in, especially in the current climate of budget cuts and services being cut, did the Council get the best price for this site or its true value???

What are the RFL going to do with the ground now plus who and how are any jobs and improvements that need doing going being paid for,.
There are lots and lots of questions but like the North Korean regime the RFL won't tell anybody anything its a closed shop. How I wish we could do a Freedom of Information request on the RFL.

I absoluteley hate the RFL even more now this deal stinks.

This is wrong, so wrong what kind of precedent is this setting???
I don't care the ground has history so did Station Road, Watersheddings, Thrum Hall, Central Park and Knowsley Road but all these clubs at those grounds had to do it the hard way and raise their own money to fund new grounds or move to grounds shared with football clubs and improve them.
Plus how come they have done this with OUR money, that is the fans and other clubs money when the RFL won't even give Championship clubs any of the Premier Sports money, it stinks.

No coincidence that Fat Controller comes from Bradford then never heard of a 'vested interest'???

Plus the ground was a public owned 'assset' are the local council taxpayers happy they have subsidised (yet again didn't the Council pay for the improvements a few years ago and that block at the far end?) the RFL and a professional rugby club? Any public asset should be put on the open market when being cashed in, especially in the current climate of budget cuts and services being cut, did the Council get the best price for this site or its true value???

What are the RFL going to do with the ground now plus who and how are any jobs and improvements that need doing going being paid for,.
There are lots and lots of questions but like the North Korean regime the RFL won't tell anybody anything its a closed shop. How I wish we could do a Freedom of Information request on the RFL.

I absoluteley hate the RFL even more now this deal stinks.

This season's going to be fscking brilliant. Hatred is way better than pity.

absolutely f*********g ridiculuous, I am a Cas fan, and the RFL couldn't even help Wakey out last year yet they can afford to buy out the stadium with the worst atmosphere and shelter humanly possible. What it must be like to be one of the inner circle of the RFL.

CHEATS CHEATS CHEATS, that's all I can say for the RFL

LOL fast tracked are you sure, not how Glover tells it or how it went down at all and the points deduction was the same as what had already been given to the Crusaders, so how was that doing favors,. Your really reaching if you think the RFL putting their hand in their back pocket and forking out for a stadium is similar to allowing a new owner put his own money into a club that as gone into admin.
I have a lot of time for Bradford and there fans, still do but the RFL have a lot to explain.

Yer we don't like you but any hatred is towards the RFL and the Fat Controller one of Bradford's own = Nigel Wood.
I did not know this was North Korea where we have a regime that does just what it wants with everybody elses money.
This guy and his muppets are out of control, he needs reigning in.