It's the time line that is relevant here , KPMG would have checked Fax's bid in Jan/feb , if they had a problem to the extent suggested then they would have told the RFL at that time , for the RFL to then not inform Fax of the problem for 3/4 months is quite simply ridiculous , or it tells us they never intended to take Fax's bid as a serious one anyway

KPMG dont have a problem with Fax , neither did the RFL until they couldn't sustain the Crusaders , up to that point they were just in the process to give some perverse credibility to it , only when their bid suddenly had to be taken seriously , because the ' Expansion ' card had failed did the RFL then either come out with the truth or concoct reasons to discredit Fax's bid in reaction to public criticism

Fax have been hung out to dry , hopefully no other club will ever be put in that situation again

Or it tells us the RFL, rightly, judged it to be unfair for them to help Halifax improve their application because that facility wasnt available to everyone else.
So if KPMG dont have a problem with Halifax why have they concocted this 'character assasination'?

Don't follow your logic. Why did the RFL need to "concoct reasons to discredit Fax's bid" when the expansion card had failed? And how have they been hung out to dry?

It seems to me this result highlights 2 things.

1. Many peoples perception of some of the franchise bids was wide of the mark.

2. It's plainly unreasonable to make championship clubs compete on an equal footing with established SL clubs in the franchise application process.

So you admit , the RFL could make Fax's bid look good or bad irrelevant of wether it was or wasn't by the use of positive and negative language ?

Not like you to agree with me ?

Where have I suggested that KPMG have done anything of the sort ? , can you point me in the direction of a statement or announcement by KPMG that suggests it ?

Fax , like any heartland club cannot compete with the expansion argument , the way the Quins assessment is worded shows that quite clearly , it overrides any other consideration , just as it did with the Celtic Crusaders in 2008 , it was only when the Crusaders withdrew their application that Fax were then in a genuine competition for a licence , up to that point they were just ' window dressing ' , The RFL colluded with them to get them up to the required qualification standard

Once they were in a straight fight with a club that had recently had financial troubles , and had repeatedly failed on promises made in the past , both things that had been used by the RFL to exclude clubs from SL in the past , they quite rightly thought they had a genuine chance , they had done essentially everything the RFL had asked for , only to find the RFL s requirements had changed again , a well run sustainable business isn't the requirement any more , a sugar daddy is

You are quite correct , it is impossible for any Championship club to compete equally with a SL club for a licence , so why not just come out and say so ? Instead of dangling carrots , and then snatching them away at the last minute

Its pretty much unarguable, you use positive or negative language to express a positive or negative view. As I said, its how language works.

"the club did not provide sufficient information for KPMG to complete their assessment procedures", the only people who could decide whether or not Fax provided KPMG with enough information for KPMG to complete their assesment would obviously be...........KPMG. It is KPMG who are saying they didnt have the information, not the RFL. Why would KPMG "concoct" this to bad mouth Fax, or if they didnt why would the allow the RFL to use their name to "concoct" this? Whats in it for KPMG? Especially when Fax could quite easily sue KPMG for either telling the RFL this or colluding with the RFL to use their name to add credence to this if it wasnt true?

For once, he's talking sense.

There is no way, whatsoever, that a firm like KPMG would be anything other than objective, in accordance with the criteria they have been set. There would be no advantage to them in doing otherwise, and massive downside risks. The fee they would earn from the RFL for this assignment would probably just about pay the tea and coffee bill for the Leeds office (I assume it will be that office that did the work?), so its just another job and they'll have carried out their assignment just like any other. I speak anyway as someone who has dealt with KPMG Leeds for over 20 years, and I'd bet the mother-in-law on them having acted objectively.

I havent suggested that KPMG have done anything wrong , but surely the RFL would want every club to submit as strong an application as they possibly could ? , and considering Fax's application was put in at Xmas last year and would have been examined in jan/feb , so if it was a case of unsufficient information then surely the RFL should have told Fax , for Smokey to suggest that is giving extra help to one club is ridiculous considering the financial and administrative help supplied to the Crusaders by the RFL

I alsoice that there is not a single mention of KPMG's conclusions for any other club , only the RFL's conclusion , so why were Fax singled out in this way , it would be interesting to know KPMG's opinions of the financial operations of all the clubs especially the ones losing hundreds of thousands a year

An ' objective ' opinion of a ' subjective ' process would be interesting

not bothering with the rest of the thread as i can imagine the conspiracy theories presented but surely, in any competitive 'bid' process you don't go back and give someone a second chance. indeed, you wouldnt normally provide feedback in advance of a decision being made. you put in a bid, and live and die by it. bad bid = bad bid. get over it.

In a competitive bid you surely shouldn't be providing finance and administrative assistance to one of the ' bidders ' in that case ? should you ?

As I said , no mention KPMG's conclusions for any other club , just the RFL's wording ' sugar coated ' of course

Jesus you're like a squirming eel.
Just get over it before you make yourself look anymore of a plonker

If you dont want to contribute ? , dont

I'm just going to add a quick 2 penneth and then leave this arguing to commence.

3 Years ago, Castleford Tigers submitted their application and Business plans and forcasts as being in another stadium with other income streams available once in there, Surely all those plans were speculative if they were never going to be in this stadium, 3 years later they are given another licence based on business plans again for being in another stadium, Surely again this is specualtive and again they are not going to be in this stadium for at least 18 months 2 years. So how on gods earth can they say on one hand that Halifax who are not in superleague can only estimate and specualte how many season ticket holders they would get etc for business forcasts is not good enough but another club who bases everything out of being in a imaginary stadium is ok.

Now i am not having a dig at Castleford as they clearly had a decent bid with youth structure and other areas etc.
I am saying that the RFL can't have it on one hand for one club and not all the others.

which is an entirely different point. maybe they shouldn't have. but doesnt change the fact that in a standard bid process you don't giev a bidder another chnace by telling them they've cocked up and you generally do not correspond with any bidder until the result is announced.

but you repeatedly mix up a whole load of different points over and over again, going round and round in circles and increasingly looking more and more desperate and foolish to justify some increasingly far-fetched point. Someone makes a reasonable point/explanantion but you'll then roll out another element of conspiracy, ignoring what every one else is seeing as a reasonable point and instead, running down another tangent.

Slight misconception there.
The current sides havent been judged this time on future dreams but the current here and now. It was deemed that Castlefords current set up, overall, was a stronger bid than Halifax's.

Sometimes people get drawn too much into the stadium debate, as if its the be all and end all when that couldnt be further from the truth. The situation being that the stadium supplies revenue and other aspects and facilities to other parts of the bid meaning if you havent modern facilities much falls by the wayside. This is one reason the stadium is deemed so important but in reality, if Cas have many of these things in place, running at a profit, 12k capacity and so forth, they can have a stronger bid than Fax without the new facility.

As I understood it (and I admit I may be wrong) Halifax initially competed with Widnes for the franchise which had been reserved for a club not in the current SL. When that bid failed (as everyone expected) they were invited to bid for a franchise in competition with the SL clubs. As these two applications were distinct surely they could have received feedback from the first failure and used it to bolster their second bid. When was the Widnes/Halifax result announced and what was the deadline for all the other clubs (including Halifax) to submit their bids?

December I think was when Halifax, Barrow and Widnes submitted and April 1st when Super League sides submitted theirs. I imagine that the Halifax bid as submitted in December would be compared against the Super League bids submitted at the start of April and I wouldnt have expected Halifax to be told of 'weaknesses' and given another chance as they'd be seen as having had an advantage - in that regard, every SL side could have asked for a feedback stage and chance to re-submit in advance of the final selection as Halifax would have had that opportunity. That said, maybe Halifax were allowed to submit a bid to be compared only against the SL clubs in April...but i doubt they could have had a feedback loop for teh reasons already outlined.

Like you - I could be wrong, but that is what would seem to me to be the approriate way of doing this.

Either way - it doesnt change the fact that a bid was made and seen to be not as good as the others. and there ends the conspiracy.

No it isn't an entirely different point , and as for going down different tangents making different points , that probably because the points I make , don't get answered , as I stated surely the RFL , after helping Fax to ' Qualify ' to apply , would want them to submit as strong an application as possible , as they would for all the applicants ?

Without reading the whole thread, has anyone noticed how, in the case of Wakefields bid...

Wakefield Trinity Wildcats’ application confirmed that new ownership has injected enthusiasm, capital and business acumen into the club. The business plan provided achievable targets for growing the business, and a realistic strategy to reach these targets. Wakefield’s performance on the field and player supply across the current Licence period has been acceptable and their community programme is excellent. However commercial, financial and governance performance in this Licence period has been poor, with the club entering administration in February of 2011.

You could replace Wakefield Trinity Wildcats with Widnes Vikings and 3 years ago got a very different result.

I don't see any reason why Halifax couldn't have been told very early on something like "There are some parts of your bid that do not have enough information for KPMG to complete their assessment procedures. You have 14 days to provide the necessary information or we will not be able to accept your bid this time."

This was supposed to be a process to find the best clubs for a SL license, not to trip clubs up with red tape.

It wouldnt have been looked at 'very early on' I don't think. usual practice for any bid process is that you look at them together once all the bids are in. indeed, when i've competitively bid for work in the past i'm asked to send a sealed envelope and from the other side, when i've assessed bids for things, i sign to say i opened a sealed envelope and had no prior site of the document.

This has always seemed tedious to me process wise but it is not 'red tape' per se but standard practice for bidding that would would ensure transparancy, fairness and also protect the RFL from litigation. If you provide advance feedback to one party, you are open to claims by all others that they too should have had the right to advance feedback. if you tell one bidder 'sorry, but this bit's a bit weak' then everyone else would have the right to know which bits of theirs were weak.

Imagine Halifax got in on the strength of a 're-submitted' bid where they had been given the chance to supplement elements. The unsuccessful club who Halifax beats based on that resubmitted bid would have a pretty strong legal case that they were not treated similarly and were not given that same opportunity.

you can often go back for more information, but only if the process you outlined at the start to all bidders allowed for that to be done. i don't know whether it was the case or not. as it is though, we cannot blame the RFL for some conspiracy if all they did was follow good practice that ensured a fair and transparent process. It seems to me that they probably did follow such a process.

All i'm sayiong is that if they'd followed standard 'bid' practice Halifax would have had known the criteria and requirements, they then put a bid in, it gets compared to other bids, and then feedback given after a decision is made. that seems to be the process that was followed.

the only bit that i think would need consideration and I honestly don't know about is is whether the Halifax bid of December was then compared to SL club bids from April without Halifax re-submitting. That'd be a tricky one to manage...logically, I'd think the RFL two options:

1) Use the December bid and compare against SL clubs
2) Require Halifax to submit a bid for April, but without any feedback on what they'd submitted in December -as the SL clubs about to bid could argue they'd not had that opportunity and were therefore at an unfair disadvantage.

just to reiterate the point.

If I was Salford, Wakefield, Castleford etc. and I heard that Halifax had been told "There are some parts of your bid that do not have enough information for KPMG to complete their assessment procedures. You have 14 days to provide the necessary information or we will not be able to accept your bid this time." I'd kick up a right fuss... "It's a bid process, they had the same infromation as all other sides with which to put together their bid, and if you consider their resubmitted elements without restarting the whole bid process again you'll be hearing from our lawyers"

on te basis of what we know (not what people have made up) - the Halifax bid was not as good as others. The real question if i was a Halifax fan would be why not? Who put the bid together, who didnt get it right?

isnt that what the RFL did with the crusaders bid? they said the figures dont add up and went back to them to ask more questions? Didnt Richard Lewis say something along the lines of, we are in constant communication with the club to discuss the licensing process? funny how Halifax then saw their refusal as a major surprise