Given we were only allowed a 1 year probationary licence (a penalty which doesn't seem to have been enforced against any other club that has been in our circumstances) has there been any say on what happens next year?

The RFL seem to have made a rod for their own back with this thing.

There's been nothing specific apparently, or so we were told at the forum some time back. To be honest I can't see any logical reason why things won't just carry on as normal next year, unless some absolute disaster occurs.

I'd suspect this was just put in to keep an odd club sweet about the whole business over the close season but clearly no-one had thought it through or had a clue how to implement it, so it's just empty rhetoric, unless some unknown sub-committee is still working on it.

We could do with finding out soon. There's a fair few players out of contract come the end of this season, and if we don't find out soon we could end up in a similar position as to last year, with players uncertain on the future of the club and looking at other options, i.e other teams.

Tbh they need to make a decision in next month or so. We need to start re-signing players we want to keep and other clubs are allowed to talk to ooc players at end of May. It would be unfair to new owners to put us at a disadvantage in recruitment stakes a second year running.

Exactly, why should the Bulls be singled out for this treatment? Surely the new owners/board have done enough off field to show that they're committed to the club and the sport as well as the playing and coaching staff showing that commitment on the field despite not having the time to put together a team from bare bones of what was left by the rest of the league as well as having 1 arm tied behind their backs in terms of the Sky money being giving to the rest of the league.

Presumably they'll carry out some sort of financial evaluation?

I thought Salford's new owner had put in a bid for the whole Superleague to ensure the Devils win next year - maybe we should ask him

Like the one they did on our previous management and all the other clubs, when the licences were first issued you mean?

I think that process is as devalued as Osborne's plan to revitalise the economy..

I'm sure there's a logical reason, but can anyone explain why Salford haven't had their license questioned?

Did they not officially go into Administration or something? You would think with the sanctions put in place that meant they couldn't sign players and all that, it would have meant they had their license questioned too.

Not that they should lose it, and I don't want them to. Just not sure why we got ours almost recinded, and yet Salford seem to have been allowed to carry on as normal. As I say, I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation, I just don't know it.

There is. Salford did not go into administration. So we will never know how the RFL would have reacted if they had. Much to the relief of the RFL, no doubt.

I suspected it was something like that, thanks (I confess I don't know the ins and outs of things like that).

That's true Adey, though it's far from unfair to point out that with problems for Wakey, us and the Reds, the RFL's financial review process doesn't come out as being the sort of 'robust control', many seem to assume it is.

If you were to do a proper, in depth, warts-and-all audit of most sports clubs then you would find they are financially fooked. This is a situation that has worsened over the last few years, of course, as the recession bites, but in principle it has been like that for decades. Everyone actually knows this.

Only today, the results of a survey into soccer make grim reading for the optimists, a high percentage of the clubs who participated basically agree the clubs and the game are in a financial mire.

Anyone who genuinely believes that the threat of a full and in-depth audit by the RFL would somehow transform each club into a profitable entity, so that alone amongst sporting organisations, we would be the one with an all-profitable cast, must be some superoptimistic descendant of Mr. Micawber, with double optimism gene mutation, on hallucinogenic drugs. The only game in town right now is survival. If all the clubs manage to somehow do that, that would be a remarkable result in itself.

Another class of idiots seem to believe that not only should the RFL be able to identify those clubs who will go near-bust in the next year but that they, alone in the world, are the organisation that has THE ANSWERS and can ensure that any given club suddenly starts making pots of money, if only shown the error of their ways, and told the magic secrets of how they should go on in future.

We are in a triple-dip recession, and the vilest government in history is still putting the squeeze on every individual and every local company. Even the squeaks from the pips will soon be exhausted. Disposable income is decimated, funds available for sponsorship are as rare as rocking horse shhit, any form of fundraising is HAAARRRRD and costs money to put on, and may lose it, even the previously-available loan funding is now seriously choked, as the basstard banks consolidate their ability to divide the bonuses and, with impunity, ignore all government entreaties - indeed have Gideon arguing their case in Europe to be allowed to pay whatever obscene bonuses they want.

Some people need a serious reality check. The clubs we have will only remain intact with a combination of largesse, administrations, write-offs and desperate fundraising, until the country's finances take a very big upturn for the better, if they ever do. Dire straits are the order of the day, and I don't need anyone, including RFL financial gurus, to tell me that.

You may be right FA but will the RFL take the same pragmatic view and wave our license through now or sit on their hands and do nowt until it starts to have an adverse effect on our ability to plan for the future?

FA has got it quite right, [ihowever[/i as pointed out by the OP, the RFL still have the sword of Damocles hanging over us, the utilisation of which is presumably based on our financial position, or maybe, as I said earlier a lot of empty rhetoric to avoid crossing some club's 'red line', when the old management went down the pan.

Either way round we need to know pretty soon what is to happen - and to be honest, it hardly matters if their accountants just stick their fingers in the air and guess, we just need an answer.

I should think we will just be carrying on as if the continuing licence is a given. I don't think you could meaningfully plan for the alternative anyway.

I don't see how the RFL could possibly not say we have passed our probation, unless something goes really pear shaped between now and the announcement, but the we'd probably be down the pan anyway. I really don't see that happening.

Finally I agree that technically the lack of an early decision could hamper our planning, contracts etc., but don't think there's a cat in hell's chance of the RFL taking that into account and making an early announcement. I base that on the precedent of what they did to us last time round, culminating in the unsupportable decision to slash our funding and divvy it between the other clubs. They didn't seem to have our inability to plan / sign or re-sign players etc. anywhere on their top ten list, did they?

I'd be surprised if it wasn't quietly waved through - it is the only sensible option. In large part for the reasons FA outlined, but also having come this far it'd be bizarre to suddenly get all hard-ass about things. It'd be the worst of both worlds.

The bigger question is what'll happen to the licensing system when this period has run its course. The announcement of the next round is due in a little over a year, so if we're going to have a different system (and even if they try to gloss over it to a degree, we have to), they need to indicate what it is going to be pretty soon.

The RFL won't make any announcement as this "threat" is as hollow as every other Licence "threat" they have made whether it be about finances/ground improvements/crowds or whatever. Basically don't go bust this season and your safe. Same goes for the next round of licensing which will follow the usual process of a load of rhetoric followed by Nigel Wood picking his favourite 14 teams with a token change (Sheffield in for Cas is my guess) to keep people believing there is some merit to the system

So easy to be critical of the RFL. They are not the ones who have for 120 years failed to properly run sports clubs so as to prevent them going bust. Clubs have to be protected from themselves, with very little money available to clubs or the RFL there is not a great deal the RFL can do. Unless you are an inbred Wigan hillbilly & want the cap scrapped so they can be dominant again I am not seeing many sensible alternatives, & I am buggered if I know many.

Look the RFL cant even get a sponsor for SL let alone make any early decisions on if we are going to stay in SL next year, and as for the next round of licensing who knows my be the force will be with them

Maybe we should put a call in to Qatar. Obviously some Qatari who is not quite potless has taken a shine to girlieball, and makes this frank assessment of the 'glittering' European soccer scene:



But they have the answer; the perfect salary cap:



All teams that qualified for this season's Champions League will be offered £175m each.

The catch? They will play in the 24-team Dream Football League in Qatar and other Gulf countries in 2015.

If these guys did the same for RL - what would be the point of being a "Bulls fan" if the Bulls were effectively moved to an Arab league? Am I missing something?

It's not the idea of a cap that I see as wrong, it's the fact it is such an arbitrary number, bearing no relation to the club, it's income, or it's potential.

Saying "You can all spend £1.6m on salaries" is the most ludicrous thing anyone has ever done in sport. It penalises those clubs who can (and often do) generate way more than this figure, and encourages those that don't generate the income to spend money they haven't got (societies problem all 'round these days).

If the salary cap was based on matchday revenues - and by that I mean genuine 'through the gate' revenues, not backhanded one off 'sponsorships' - then what would be the problem? If 15-20,000 fans turn up at Wigan/Leeds and pay £15-£25, why should they lose players to NRL/Union simply because other clubs cant get 5,000 through the gate, even at reduced prices? If only 3,000 people can be bothered to watch a team, then I'm sorry but you will be watching a crap team. If you turn out in more numbers, then your team will be allowed to improve as revenues improve. Again, why is that such a difficult concept?

The current situation whereby (to keep top players) clubs with genuine spare cash have to skirt around the salary cap by offering outside perks, family jobs, and elongated contracts, simply because certain other clubs shout 'foul' as they can't afford it is farcical. I'm surprised the RFL haven't stipulated all players have to drive Trabants and live in identical state run apartment blocks so no-one looks more equal than the others!

Thing is they [ihave[/i to make an announcement.

The current Bulls' licence [iends[/i in October, which leaves a full season to be completed before any new 'full' licensing round comes into force. Even if it turns out to be the easy, logical and straight forward one of, "keep calm and carry on", they [istill [/ihave to say it.

:3hnx36ir

The system you seem to want is the one which failed previously though, when it left us with just one club, which bought all the very best players just to let them moulder in the reserves for no other reason than to prevent other clubs from signing them.

No system is ever perfect though, and as you rightly point out, neither is the salary cap. Incidentally, we aren't losing players to either the RU or NRL because they have a free for all, but because [i:3hnx36irtheir[/i prevent clubs overspending, it became a mission to even out the league and get a closer competition, whilst losing the overspending element. Again as you point out, it's hardly worked there either.

At the end of the day, cap or no cap, clubs have to generate income and big city clubs with larger catchment areas are always going to dominate. The one element you missed out was the rôle of the 'sugar daddy', who provide income over and above that generated by a well run business. These can be capricious though, and can go as quickly as they come and, whilst in situ, they can distort the internal, particularly player market, in the game. In my opinion, we allow these people to run unchecked within the game at our peril.

I think you entirely miss the point that the main aim of the salary cap was precisely to hold back clubs that would otherwise buy up all the best talent simply because they are better off.

It is a given that there will always be far lesser-supported clubs and the idea was to make it possible for them to be competitive on the pitch. To a large degree this has succeeded, especially as you can never actually eliminate the financial gulf between the have-nots and the have-fook-alls, and as the rules can limit direct overspending, but can never exclude creative 'other ways' of securing expensive players.

The salary cap is a bit like pouring oil on troubled waters, it is effective, but can only do so much. It is better than the alternative was.

However where you are fundamentally wrong is in saying the salary cap "encourages those that don't generate the income to spend money they haven't got ". This is nonsense. No club ever set out to bankrupt itself and "spend money it hasn't got", there may be a long history of over-ambition and financial mismanagement but where is this "encouragement"?

All teams, and especially the most successful ones, rely on financial largesse in the large part, not on gate receipts alone, important though they are. Many clubs are propped up by financial backers and to suggest (as you are doing) that wealthy benefactors should effectively be be banned is about as silly a suggestion as I've seen. I agree entirely that the existence of what have become commonly and irritatingly known as "sugar-daddies" puts the clubs they finance in a vulnerable position but without such people, SL of today would be little different from the Championship and I am pretty sure you know this.

And even then, the Championship clubs struggle financially because the demand for the standard of teams and for success invariably is a large gap away from the available gates and funds which are needed to achieve it. That seems to be true at all levels of sport.