Of course you are right.
However, any transfer fee is only a small part of the cost and certainly losing a few of the top earners from the pay roll would help cover some of the administrators cost.
The company that I used to work for bought a business out of administration some years ago and the number of staff that we inherited, compared to the number employed previously, was massively less, in fact, less than a third of the staff that were there on the last day of "normal" trading.
The Administrator was utterly ruthless and that doesn't appear to be the case here.

What just a two word statement!

This must be truly painful for you as your fantasy SL dream crashes around your sad little ears.

No amount of quoting will get you out of this, it's fantasists like you who've dragged this great sport to it's knees and that's no "myth". You and you're fellow SL apologists have destroyed the game but I don't expect and apology any time soon.

Should the R.F.L. take all the rap for the demise of Bradford - No way.

Are the R.F.L. culpable in the demise of Bradford - Most definitely.

Do the newspapers one again. Stick to the classics, your new stuffs rubbish.

And a correct one.

The Bulls financial problems began with the settlement of the outstandng term of the previous lease on Odsal in 2003. There were a bunch of incidental things people hold higher, the signing of Iestyn Harris for one. They are making it up. There was no notion of this prior to 2002. There were no financial difficulties in that time.

The thing Smokey said was a myth was that the Bull's success was built on money it did not have. It had it in 2003. and therefore the success of that year and those preceding it.... you can fiull in the blanks if you close your eyes and try really really hard.

But still do come at us with your post-facto explanations of what happened like they're worth something. Rugby League would not be the same without it.

i don't think you can promote toronto this late on. plans will already be in place to play against the clubs in their division and fans of clubs may have already booked a trip across there later this year.

regarding bradford, is there any indication yet that a new club is rising from the ashes?
who will bankroll and run the new club?
where would they play?
where would they get players at short notice if their current crop is snapped up?
what league would they start in?
what if another new club comes along from somewhere - who would get preference if there is only one place available?
what about all the other stuff - sponsors, kits, training base, etc etc?

would it be possible for a completely new franchise we have not heard of yet to step in from, say, coventry or bristol?

probably be best to sit out this season rather than rush into this one with little planning then a new club could start stronger next year when more players would be available and a ground and sponsors could be sorted out. doubt they'll get any help from the council though

just seen the RFL statement which answers a few of my questions above. however i think is is a bit odd that a new club can be offered a place in the same league as their predecessors. normally a new club would start in the bottom league like rangers did in scottish football for example. i know RL needs a strong team in bradford but there seems to be a whiff of backroom dealing going on here with some potential new owners we know nothing about as yet.


unless the RFL themselves are taking control of the club - wouldn't be the daftest thing they have ever done

Well it wouldn't be the first time would it & look how well that worked out.

Nothing to do with the RFL. You of all people should know that with the amount of trolling you do.

And just because you got a kids meal from burger king with a crown, does not give you title of king

well things moving on at pace now. possibility of an owner waiting in the wings until the liquidation happened then stepping in as the rfl's preferred bidder, hence the rfl offer of a place in the championship. rfl of course are pretending they don't know who the new buyer is, or even if there is one.

after all, to be cynical, someone has to pay the rfl some rent for odsal

Things could have been so different if Bradford had merged with Halifax two decades ago.

Love how people seriously think Toronto RL will just work overnight... "Built it and they will come"

Clearly years of consistent failure (in every department) on the RFL's part isn't enough to convince some people. Good for a laugh though !

Can you explain further ? , for those of us less knowledgable , I assume that Odsal was costing the council ?

Nice one. Who is that has said that?

You do realise that the RFL are not responsible for running the clubs?

The RFL's only real dodgy decision with Bradford was buying Odsal, I understand they did it to stop the ground being purchased by asset strippers who would just dump the club and redevelop the land at first opportunity, but it did create a conflict of interest of sorts. A better outcome would have been some sort of supporter backed trust buying the ground and then leasing it back to the club, but I imagine the financing would have been problematic.

Are the lower league clubs happy that Bradford PA Bulls are being offered a place in the Championship ? Is all there hard work for nothing ?

i love the world of business sometimes - you can go bust owing millions and then start up again almost immediately owing nothing with just a slight name change and different personnel

so what happens to the big bash if bradford do not reform or the new owners decide to start from the 3rd tier?


sympathy for the fans, players and staff but clearly lessons have not been learnt from previous owners, the rfl and past administrators have a lot to answer too for allowing the past owners gain ownership!

Unfortunately the limited liability laws are necessary to stimulate business growth , without them entrepreneurs just wouldnt invest , I myself started a business 24 years ago under the strict orders of my wife that our house would not be at risk , that business turned over 23 million in 19 years , employing dozens of people , giving 1 st job opportunities to dozens of teenagers

I suffered hundreds of thousands of unrecoverable bad debt due to those laws and in the end had to use them myself when closing the business down

It's just the way it is

I like virtually all other fans including the sizeable majority of Bulls fans believe they should have to restart in Championship 1 , but given the time scale involved it just isn't workable , therefore the Championship it will have to be

No doubt they will feel the anger of many opposition fans in the coming season and beyond , not their issue though really

More importantly will be finding either a way a club playing out of Odsal can be sustainable at any level , or how they find a new home that is viable and workable , I wish them luck in finding an answer

I blame:

1) Stephen Byers
2) Peter Hood
3) Whoever it was at Wembley who decided Speedway must go.

The reason for number 3 is it changed the relationship between the club and the stadium. The 1985 World Speedway Final happened at Odsal. Odsal as it is remembered by the olds, and me when I was but a young un, is a different place to anything we've seen since then. The stand on what is now the uncovered popular side was knocked down. That terracing was built. The dressing rooms underneath were built. The stand opposite was built. The pits end, before it was the Coral Stand, was turned into proper garages rather than just the hill with a road up it that it used to be.

There was a deal signed at this time. I don't recall the specifics of it, but it was to reflect the changed ownership, etc, and amounted to the old rent scheme. Basically the council saddled themselves with the maintenance and running costs of the place in exchange for owning it and the club just paid rent. (I'll be honest, "ownership" isn't the way to say that. It isn't what it was. But I don't actually know what it was.)

Various schemes popped up to develop the place further, as was seemingly always the plan, but nothing ever came of them. The "Wembley of the North" nonsense didn't start at this point, it's much older than that, but it did rekindle around this time.

By the time the late 90s came around supermarkets were buying up town centre sites. I think in RL Wigan were first? But obviously there were others. With Bradford it was Tesco. There were plans, there was money, there was everything in place for it to happen. There was certainly a desire with the council - even then funding top ups from central government were being curtailed. Planning permission was no problem whatsoever. We even moved out for two years.

What there also was from central government though was a moratorium on "out of town" shopping centres. Ken Morrison, the Morrisons man, objected. And there's a direct line between that objection and it not happening. A lot of Bulls fans blame him. I don't. That was a raw commercial choice from someone legally obliged to act in the best of interests of his shareholders. The choice from Byers to pretend it was a detriment to the city is where a large chunk of my blame lies. More than half? Dunno. Close though. Cos this place that was far outside Bradford and a threat to its commercial activity if people went there was at that time the beneficiary of an inner city development grant from the same sodding government. It was also a supermarket. The kind of place where you buy food to eat and other essentials of living that people need. So you might want as a supermarket properties purchaser want somewhere where people actually live. And this out of town place is heavily populated, and for miles further out of town still until you are actually out of town. And beyond, cos then it's Cleckheaton.

And also ... this city centre they were protecting. Two years later they knocked it down. A little over a year ago they finished building the thing that would replace it. Most of the time in between it was a massive gaping hole. So that worked nicely.

So it didn't happen, and now they have to go back to Odsal. There was a choice at this point, fwiw. Back to Odsal or stay at Valley Parade. As I recall they sounded out the fans. Not a formal vote or anything but some market research. Crowds were clearly down on what they had been a couple of years before. We'd been away from home for two years. We all felt homesick. I know I did. We went back.

But the deal with the council had to change. It wasn't over and finished with yet but it was coming to a close and something had to change. A lot of money had been spent to to get to this stage, and there had been several years expectation of not having council tax money be spent on this. The new deal had to reflect this situation. So the remainder was just paid off in cash outright to deal with the ongoing costs of the place, and then you make your own arrangements. I think it was not quite five million quid all told. A big lump of that went on the Coral Stand with the idea that it be used to raise funds. The rest went on maintaining a winning team to get enough people in to use it and spend money.

So we now how both of those went. Hood's to blame for most of that. But tbh, from the vantage point of today, cards were marked the day we moved back. Probably before.

Harris barely rates a mention for me, expensive though it was. It would have happened anyway.

Thanks for your input Royboy29 but I'm afraid you don't make any sense? Please can you elaborate further?

Regards

King James

So basically from the point you moved back , Odsal has been unviable ?

I cannot see how that is going to change

Do you mean those "lower league" clubs that have to stay within their budgets or their stuffed - game over - clubs?

I just can't believe they'll be too happy, but then again, it's just the nature of the beast these days, individuals can happily load up the debt.

Imagine spending loads of non-existent cash, with little consequences?

It's easy if you try.

What if someone's got a plan for Odsal?