because the aim is to have fewer of the third option not just to keep rotating them.

And the question isnt why exclude them, its why include them?

Depends if other clubs mind the RFL shunting £1.2m their way, or paying their player wages for 2 months on the bounce. So long as clubs like Leeds and Warrington extend the charitable hand and if the rest of SL can support a crippled bankrupt club who have not one iota of financial sense then they're welcome to it. Bradford (and Huddersfield) have done a marvellous job in cheapening Super League - long may it continue. Any current Halifax director who hasn't got a bottomless pocket must want his head testing if he still wants to take the club into SL. Wakefield, Crusaders and flagship club Bradford have shown that you can't support a competitive team in SL with buttons. No doubt other SL clubs will empty their financial bowels in the next two years.

What Smokey is saying is: why dilute a league with crap in it with even more of the same crap? Why indeed? As has been pointed out before, licensing does not pick 14 outstanding clubs immune from meltdown - it merely picks the best available 14. What Crusaders, Wakefield and Bradford have shown is that almost a quarter of clubs in SL shouldn't really be there but the rest of the field competing to also get in are just as crap or worse.

Oh Smokey, I really shouldn’t have replied to your previous post, however sometimes, I can’t help myself.

Whilst your view is valid, remember, it’s just a view.

Your judgement of the game is clouded due to your position on high, however, their may be salvation

.

Let your mind drift to your 1st love, maybe 2nd – not sure, you know, L.U.F.C.

How would you feel if their promotion to the Premier League was based, on the whole, by checklists & ratified by people in suits.

Or would you rather feel the elation of your team finishing in a promotion place or win the play-offs to gain entry into the ‘Bullingdon Club’?

It should be. We (lufc) made massive mistakes and were run terribly for a while. Promotion and Relegation made the consequences of those mistakes much much worse.

If we are to ever challenge again then we need the stability of a licence or the deep deep pockets of a very rich investor to buy us that stability or we will just repeat the same rise and fall.

Bit harsh on HKR to be put in cat3. We avg 8k and with ground improvements will have opportunity to increase that, have financial backers willing to cover income shortfall and have been regular playoff team.

Realistically what is the teams aim for the season? Win the GF or get into the play offs? Making improvements doesn't mean it IS of the calibre of the DW, HJ, Galpharm etc it COULD be after the improvements. Fair assesment to me.

Yep getting into the playoffs and keep improving on and off the field. What every club should be aiming for. Only a few will ever win a cup, especially with the "flexible" salary cap we have in SL. To suggest those teams that can't win a cup are a waste of time being in SL is laughable.

You mean like Rovers did?

Youve been in oz for too long, like HKR we all lose out to SL clubs for the best juniors, crowds are dropping off and sponsors just tell us to come back when we are ' in '

It's not laughable at the start of the season what were the goals? get in to the play offs/ top eight? Justin Morgan a couple of years ago said he thought HKR would win and from an outsider looking in that was your best season and if that momentum would have been kept then maybe you could be challenging for trophies. On the field how many overseas signings have been confirmed for the 2013 season by HKR? How many youth players have come through the youth system in the last 5 years? And take out HKR and put Salford, Wakefield, Cas, London into the equation, what would you say then?

Catalans are prime example as well both been in SL for similar amount of time they are now third in the table and are a very good outside bet for the GF.

I think your wrong on a couple of points Maurice.
Wakefield and probably Cas will hit 10k in supporter numbers when their new grounds are complete, both are around 8k now and surely there will be some "bounce" when they are in s their new stadia.
London only have backing commitment until the end of the current franchise perion and then we have to wait and see, but thier current situation apart from location in the capital does not justify inclusion in SL.
Widnes will continue to improve and with some success they will start to show a vast improvement in supporter numbers.
Salford is a difficult one. A new ground and some improvement in attendances but they will take much longer than the others to acheive 10k.

The only thing were missing is an accountant That can make 2.2 mill look like 1.6mill when it comes time to submit wage receipts!

hehehe Or paying the tax on time.

JUST KICK THEM OUT AND START AGAIN

Thought more Bradford supporters would have turned up at the HJ yesterday considering they were being given back the gate receipts. Do they want a club in Bradford?

It could be that they are all saving up for the next bucket collection once the extension on the extended deadline is extended

The latest update has Guilfoyle blatantly blackmailing the RFL!

If you can't pay the bills, reduce your costs and sell some assets!

Any sympathy for the Bulls plight is waning very quickly.

Assets have been devalued massively by administration. Why pay for something that will be free very shortly. Other clubs are businesses at the end of the day and not charities.

The income from player sales may well be diminished, but the money that can be saved on player wages is a massive factor!

If Bulls aren't paying too many players too much money...where is/has the money gone, from a club that clearly generates a huge income?

And now the latest bid from ABC looks like going the same way as the first.

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/19049462[/url

And if the RFL don't pay the wages and the Administrators firm wont cough up, then I guess they are really staring down the barrel, and as a Widnes fan, I'm wondering if I have a game to go to at the weekend. I hope I do, because, in the same way as I'm not going to blame the fans for the boards mistakes, you can't blame the fans for the rather shoddy way the Administrator and the ABC guys seem to be going about things. I know some fans of other clubs are starting to lose sympathy, but it's not the club that is doing this, it's the administrator and ABC. And the RFL seem to be acting in a fair manner as well, by not bending to the conditions (or blackmail as someone else put it!).

According to news from a public meeting tonight the administrator has extended the deadline to the 31 August, so he's obviously confident he'll be paid for work done up until then.

I can only imagine that means the RFL have agreed to pay the August wages/advance due payments again.

If the unthinkable happens and they do get demoted to the lower leagues, who is going to be promoted in their stead and what sort of package will they get in terms of time? Would hardly be fair to give them two years, wouldn't be fair on others to give them 5.

Could be an interesting one.

I think Fax are the obvious team to give a chance and they already qualify to make a bid. And I don't buy all this "they've had their chance" crap. Every club deserves to have its day. I don't think a club trying and potentially failing is worse than never giving anyone a chance and given a chance they're not going to be too far behind what we have now already. Although losing Bradford will be a massive massive loss for league and questions have to be asked about just how poorly they've been ran in recent years.

At this stage its quite speculative, I do hope for the fans sake that something happens for Bradford.

There is no way Bradford will exit SL. Plain fact is, a club with a 10,000 fan base shouldn't be playing Championship rugby in its current form. It doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately it's looking like we're heading for liquidation. Both bids rejected.

Think we're the only sport where we have people interested in investing in a club and our governing body rejects it. Wouldn't happen anywhere else!!! I don't have a problem with the RFL refusing "conditional offers". But what is infuriating me is the RFL giving potential investors no infromation on what they will be investing in. How can the RFL expect someone to pay £3 million when the investor has no idea what they are investing in. You can't say to someone, "pay £3 million and afterwards we will let you know whether you've brought a full time super league club, or a part time championship club"

The RFL should come out and be clear whether they will keep us in SL, or put us in the championship, that way they will be no conditional offers and everyone knows what they are investing in.

But if they are liquidated? If they have no backers? They've got a big problem and might not be able to continue. I think you're right that the RFL will do everything to make sure it doesn't happen but it's looking very very bad at the moment.

As for 10,000 fans, has part of the problem been the ticket deals they've been offering to get that volume of fans?

OK, maybe they've got 8,000 full paying fans, on current form. It's still a healthy start. And as you say, there isn't another strong enough club to take their place.

Also, there has to be a "license" consequence for what has happened to Bradford - if you like, a deterrent to other clubs from being reckless. What should that be? Tricky.