Adey, looking at all your recent posts you're spouting the same bull' as you did when Bradford first went belly up. TBH the sooner they stop fudging the issues, go completely poop and start again at a LEVEL THEY CAN AFFORD the better as far as I'm concerned.

There are two ways of looking at it.

This is a new company, in which case you have to ask, other than being new, what are we punishing for?

Or this is a continuation of the old club, in which case why are we trying to punish a struggling club for struggling, and why is our solution to a club struggling to punish it, make it harder for it to recover and deter new investors from it.

None of these punishments make any sense if our aim is for a club to recover and fulfil its potential.

Well put Turfedout.

There does seem to be some history between Gutterfax and The Bulls fans and there are some excessive and inane ramblings in both directions.
But, the thread is supposed to offer a solution from 2014.
Obviously licensing has now ceased (or will have from the start of next season).
Pie Warrior isn't too far off with his solution and Adey does now seem happy for "punishment" to be "suffered" by the new BoD, what a relief for all of us.

Is that the sum of your considered, objective analysis? Pretty lean pickings indeed, if it is.

As it happens, if it was the same shower running it, anything other than a pretty severe penalty would be hard to argue against. One of my pet hates is owners/managers of a business letting it go bust, screwing the creditors, and then starting up again as a phoenix. But, lets apply your logic to a simple analagous scenario, shall we?

You bought a used car from a dealer. You even agreed to pay off the HP owing on it by its previous owner, even though it was not down to you to do that. Then you get told that, because its previous two owners were incompetant or useless drivers, you are not allowed to drive the car on motorways or A roads. Yet you believe yourself to be a good driver, and able to pay your way in the world too. And you cannot understand why folk are demanding the car be punished for the sins of its previous drivers. And you, as the current owner, with it.

And the previous useless driver anyway complains that the only reason HE lost the car was because a big chunk of his earnings had been confiscated by the authorities, because of the antics of the PREVIOUS owner before him. And that he agreed to that crazy condition because he really thought he could do some good with the car, but badly underestimated its running costs.

How would you, the current owner of the car, feel when some of your neighbours were lecturing you that everything above was all perfectly fair and reasonable? How would your familty and friends feel? And react?

No I don't. I never said that. As a blanket statement. Put your straw man away.

Any handicap (you can't "punish" someone for something someone else did) should be proportional to any comparative advantage gained. No advantage, no handicap. Big advantage, big handicap.

Even then, you need to set the handicap at a level where it does not make it too big a mountain to climb for the new owners, so there is no point in them taking it on in the first place.

Sorry if I keep pointing out inconvenient truths to folk who do not want to hear them.

Oh, and notice how the derision and the straw men start putting in increasing appearances, when they can't refute the arguments?

I see it as a continuation of the club and its actions taken have to have consequences.If the club has potential,punishing it doesnt remove that potential,its still there,just may take longer to realise.
I dont really see that the game has any option but to punish clubs,particularly in cases of insolvency.Although i dont see the point of a financial penalty,points deduction only.

Would you "punish" a club, if there was no material loss to third party creditors? Becuase the next owners settled them? Serious question, since you are making a serious and reasoned contribution to the debate.

I see your point,i would have a minimum points deduction of say two points for an act of insolvency,this been the minimum where it can be evidenced that there will be no loss to third party creditors.
And then it moves up the points deduction scale in relation to how many creditors are getting screwed over.

Using your car analogy...........

You bought the car for a fair market price for the condition it was in and should have expected it to have problems.

I guess that committing an act of insolvency, even if ultimately the creditors get paid, must have some impact across the wider game, on the creditors in the interim, and in the perception of it. So, barring exceptional circumstances, I can see your point too about having a nodest minimum penalty regardless. Then the sliding scale. I can't see that many objective observers having an issue with that.

Indeed. And if the car needs fixing, the price I paid reflects what I'll need to do to it. But the price would not be expected to reflect not be allowed to drive it on main roads because of something itsb previous owner did - since that situation and stipulation would be considerd outrageous and illogical. And who would buy a car, and take on pretty massive running costs, with that condition attached?

Action taken by other people, whilst the club may be a continuation, the club isnt a person. Those responsible for the problems Bradford faced have gone, punishing Bradford now punishes different people, people who are trying to rectify the situation. The people who caused it have gone.

Lets punish the people who cause clubs to become insolvent or go in to admin, and help those who are trying to rectify the situation. I can't see how any other approach makes any sense.

Apart from the Wakey supporters(of which im one)...............
Unfortunately i really do believe that without the threat of relegation 99% of Wakey supporters wouldnt have an issue with the above.You may have got the odd whimper,but not the baying for blood that is been seen.
In general it seems to me that the more insecure a supporter is about his own clubs safety,the harsher the penalties he wants to see enforced,irrespective of whether the punishment actually fits the crime.

Absolutely. And fully understandably, too, to be honest. We are all responding to the relegation sword of Damocles hanging over us, which has had consequences I suspect were not fully thought through tbh.

That is what makes this season, and this situation, very different to previous seasons. And why the financial penalty the Bulls are operating under this year assumes dramatically increased significance.

Action taken by other people on behalf of the club.
If you go down the route of not punishing the club,how can you punish people that are no longer there?
Exactly, the club isnt a person -but its the club that has to be punished,otherwise a simple change of shareholders of the limited company would negate any punishment been handed out for misdemeanours.

but administration is a company issue, not a playing issue. If this was an SC breach, or a players on the field breach or something like the problems Cronulla are facing in the NRL i would agree with you. But it isnt, its a company issue.

We cant justify punishing the new owners because we can't punish the old owners, there seems to be an argument here that starts with 'someone needs punishing'. It seems that we are seeing people wanting a punishment for the Bulls because someone needs punishing, we cant get the people responsible so lets get the closest thing we can, those who have taken over. To me that is not only wrong, its counter-productive.

My punishments would be that any director of a club going in to admin in RL is put on a blacklist and is unable to have any role or decision making power within the game for a period of 15 years, this list will be publicly available and called the persons found unfit and incapable list. Any businessman who gets involved in RL is generally on a bit of an ego trip, if we are going to punish them, you punish their ego.

Thats it, thats as far as we can realistically go before we are punishing anyone just to say we are punishing someone. Its not much but we dont have much leverage.

Personally i think the answer to stopping clubs going bust isnt any of the nonsense we see getting bandied about regarding punishing clubs, or relegating them or anything else. Its about having a structure to the game where clubs can flourish, where people can be held accountable and where people are held responsible. This new structure does exactly the opposite, and even encourages the opposite. IMO the RFL have abdicated themselves of any and all responsibility for anything and let the chips fall where they may. But punishing the bulls now doesnt rectify any of these things, its just misguided lip service to make people think they are doing something when in reality everything they are doing is too little too late.

The counter to that is the company is providing an unfair competitive advantage to the playing side in the event of being able to wipe away debts, so a points deduction is appropriate.

What competitive advantage is that, they still have to pay the players. Those players have contracts.

This just feeds in to the myth that the only thing keeping RL clubs from being sustainable, profitable, uber-businesses is that they pay players too much. That just simply isnt the case.

Now that we are returning to promotion/relegation, would it be fair, if a club stayed in the top flight by overspending and then finding a new owner by means of entering admin. and changing owner.
Or, being promoted and then clearing their accrued debts and starting life in the top flight with a clean slate.
In the sporting arena, it is right and proper for people or clubs who break the rules to be "punished".
If a club breaks the salary cap, they would rightly get a points deduction or hefty fine, even if they had changed ownership.
I just don't get this, "don't punish the new owners, they've done nothing wrong" nonsense.
They may not have, but they will have gained advantage with the purchase price of the club (assuming they actually paid for it in the first place).

Leaving aside London Broncos, who are being prepare for life in the Championship anyway, the question is still a valid one, even if I remove the (Obsessive?)reference to Bradford.

What happens if Team X finish 13th and are relegated along with London, only for it to become obvious in say November this year that Team Y have bankrolled their 2014 squad to 12th spot with cash they should have paid the inland revenue and other creditors and as a result, enter administration, wiping the financial slate clean, get themselves another set of owners for 2015 safe in the knowledge that even if they finish bottom of SL in 2015, they will have a far greater player budget and SKY grant than the 4 championship teams they will play in the middle 8.
By February 2016, the skulduggery of November 2014 is a distant memory as the top 12 will rarely be bothered by the top 4 of the lower league due to on-going financial limitations and restraint.

If I reintroduce Bradford to my question, specifically to Ady.....how would you feel if Team Y above were Wakefield and Team X Bradford bulls and Wakey spending beyond their means sent you down?

The rules should be clear in advance and should be:

Go into Administration = 6 points deduction

'Go bust' = relegation to the bottom division.

Note:
Going into Administration is an insolvency event but it's aim is initially is for the Administrator to sort out the entity (company) owning the club so it can come out of administration and carry on.

By 'going bust' we would mean a club passing to an new entity (company) without the creditors of the old entity being paid off.

Wrencat is spot on. The SmokeyTA rant about punishing new owners is total rubbish. Any new owners know what they are buying and offer to pay an appropriate price for the purchase.

Agree that directors of an entity owning a club that goes bust should go on a 10 year "Not fit & proper" register. But that is pretty much in the operational rules now. Just needs tightening up.

Right.

So, how do you incentivise anyone buying a club off the administrator to consider paying off any or all of the creditors? When they get ZERO benefit for so doing?

And you agree then that when Wakefield went bust in 2001, and were unable to pay off more than a small proportion of their creditors, they should have been banished to the bottom division? Or when London Took HMRC for £1/2m a few years ago, ditto?

Go on - answer me that?

Mr Churchill wrote:
The rules should be clear in advance and should be:

Go into Administration = 6 points deduction

'Go bust' = relegation to the bottom division.

Note:
Going into Administration is an insolvency event but it's aim is initially is for the Administrator to sort out the entity (company) owning the club so it can come out of administration and carry on.

By 'going bust' we would mean a club passing to an new entity (company) without the creditors of the old entity being paid off.

Wrencat is spot on. The SmokeyTA rant about punishing new owners is total rubbish. Any new owners know what they are buying and offer to pay an appropriate price for the purchase.

Agree that directors of an entity owning a club that goes bust should go on a 10 year "Not fit & proper" register. But that is pretty much in the operational rules now. Just needs tightening up.



We are talking about what should be the clear rules going forward.

IMO they should be as I set out above. Clubs then know what the impact of how they operate might be.

If a club were in Administration, potential new owners could offer to buy the EXISTING entity owning the club, introducing sufficient funds to satisfy the creditors and the administrator, and then the entity owning the club would come out of Administration and carry on, albeit with a 6 point deduction. If it were a SL club, it would carry on with SL level of Sky money.

Potential new owners could, alternatively, offer to buy the club from the Administrator by way of having it transferred to their own new company. They would offer less for it than they would have to pay to buy the existing entity but as a consequence would be getting a club that would be in Championship 1 with the associated much lower level of Sky money.

So, the incentive you ask about (ie incentive to pay more to creditors) is that they would get a club still entitled to a lot more Sky money.

Ady? Smokey? Any other apologist?