The bulls are a disgrace. They've borrowed money from the rfl and not payed it back and they've lied to rugby league fans.

send the club out of existance

The Bulls haven't, the clowns running the club have.

Why punish fans, players, employess who have nothing to do with the situation.

Greece have borrowed money and not paid it back and they've been accused of lying too, should the country be sent out of existence?

OUT OF THE EEC, YES !

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Hard cheese for the fans i'm afraid. They've had their glory, their 5 major finals defeats to st helens and their 3 grand final wins. The players will find new clubs, the employees will find new jobs.

It will make a mockery of the franchise system is bradford retain their license, it should be revoked.

What a sad, bitter little man you are. If what you don't know about the Bulls financial situation was food, the planet would never have to worry about famine again.

Should Bradford be pushed out of SL? I don't think so, I fail to see how that would help anyone. It certainly wouldn't help the Bulls, and whoever came in wouldn't be ready either so it wouldn't really help them. The alternative would be to go with a reduced league which would hurt each club in terms of games and therefore finance.

What should happen is that anyone who sat on the previous Bulls board should be barred from ever taking any administration position at any club ever again due to not only their incompetence, but also their inability to tell the truth....

It seems pretty simple, you're screwed.

Someone more financially stable could take their place. The bulls aren't the big draw they used to be (look at the decline in derby attendances) and they themselves don't get as big attendances. Promoting a more financially viable team with the potential to grow their crowds would mean the impact on other clubs finances was much much less, if at all.

The point is maintaining the integrity of the game and the franchising system.

As do you.



You mean like Wakefield who have been kicked out of SL after getting a winding up order from HMRC, a stage that Bradford have yet to reach... Hang on....



Who? Which team in the championship is financially stable enough to take over from the Bulls? Because any team in championship right now would need an overhaul in terms of playing staff so that they don't get cricket scores posted against them every week. So that's big out-lays in terms of salaries.

Bradford have an average attendance of over 10k per home game for 2 seasons running. Which Championship club can match that? TBH, outside of Wigan, Leeds, Warrington, Hull FC and Saints which SL club can match that?
As for drop off in the derby games? We've averaged 20k for the last 2 games against Leeds at Odsal.

Any other bitter, unsupported comments you'd like to make about Bradford?

Btw, I'm not knocking Championship clubs, I'm simply illustrating the gap between SL and the Championship and the huge step up that's required for clubs to make.

To be fair, one of those attendances was generated against the background of it potentially being the last such game ever. You're not going to be able to use that marketing strategy every year.

Why not...??

No, but the game the year before had no such black cloud over it and that fell just short of 20k. The Leeds/Bradford derby has fallen out of favour in recent years, due IMO, to a number of factors. The main one being over saturation. I think a couple of seasons ago, Bradford vs Leeds was played about 6 or 7 times in one season. The game loses some of it's novelty appeal and it's status as an occasion when it's played every couple of weeks.

Sorry Roofaldo, but the game fell out of favour in a direct line with the Bulls on field success (or lack of it).
Btw, this is not a criticism of the Bulls, just a fact of life with all teams.
The derby games, perhaps with the exception of the Hull derby, dont quite have the same edge unless the teams ar on a similar or equal footing.

That's a fair point. I'd say the whole truth is somewhere in the middle of both points.

But would it? Couldn't they just divvy up the Sky money that Bradford were going to get amongst the remaining clubs to make up for the loss of a Bradford fixture?

cricket scores like 54-0?



no championship club could acheive 10000 plus crowds, but then neither could Catalans or hudderfield 5 years ago.

this is the point, we deserve a chance to try. Bradford has been run into the groung by a Bod with clearly no idea, and in my opinion should be replaced.

In that case they won't have any financial problems then. Or perhaps the crowd size is irrelevant if you're selling season tickets at unsustainably low prices just to gain an extra tick in the box for crowds over 10,000?

You are right Barnacle, cheap tickets=10000 spectators=tick on franchise application

If the Bulls could have achieved 10000 spectators per game at say £20 per head (of course it would be less than this with concessions etc), their income from spectators for the 13 rounds would have been £2.6 million but, at £100 per ST this figure is only £1 million.
So in actual fact they would be better off with 5000 spectators paying full price than 10000 cheap ST holders (notwithstanding the add on sales of course)
This is what the modern era of franchising has helped create

If it was just to tick a box for the franchise why do it 2 years in a row? They already had the licence before they extended the scheme for the second year.

The cut-price ST strategy was a gamble that failed. The idea was to offset the loss in ST revenue with increased trade in merchandise and concession sales. Turns out their projections were hopelessly optimistic to say the least.

Why indeed ?
Would they have done this if the franchise system wasn't in place or was it, as you say, a poorly thought out gamble ?

The only people who know for sure are the ex BOD. The fact that they did it 2 years in a row makes it look more like the latter than the former IMO.

I feel genuinely sorry for the fans and more so for.anyone who.pledged money to save the bulls.

Some of the Bradford and ex bradford.players who donated shirts etc must feel sick.

On the face of it I cant see the point of an administration - the clubs still losing money and theres no obvious salefor a decent price - more likely liquidate and buy the assets into a new co.

If Halifax are serious about SL they should bid.

How that affects Bradford Sl status is anyones guess but actually The Sl clubs simply letting Bradford.back in sets a dangerous precedent for credit facilities for other Sl clubs.

You would be even more reluctant to extend credit to a Sl team.

I may have mentioned at the time that I hooed the 500k wasnt juat covering directors guarantees for personal liability on debt.

Two other things

HMRC really is looking to go after sp orts clubs so an arrangement to pay is probably out and always has been.

And although it looks.like the RFL is sitting pretty you would have to say that selling the lease even at a "market rate" ( which was interesting language at the time) to a creditor to cover debt will be investigated.

When I worked directly in Insolvency we picked up two football clubs and lost.money on both.

I avoid working with sports clubs.

It'd be interesting to see that if the SL clubs let a newco Bradford back in whether there would be any penalty placed on Bradford for doing so. There wasn't when they let London back in but there was still P&R back then so maybe a newco Bradford could be let back in but with a large points deduction maybe?

This is not the first BOD to get their financial knickers in a twist, and I think it would be a very harsh judgement to consign the Bulls down to the CC.

They are a Super League team, and I have enjoyed watching them for many seasons. 2007 springs easily to mind!

If they do have to go through Administration, then I would hope they came back to SL as Bradford Northern...... a proper Rugby League name. And possibly a 4 point deduction should keep everyone else happy as well.