Confirmed on RFL website that deal been struck. Press conference next week and speaking to the players of former club.

Legal entity admitted to the League with players to be sourced if you prefer that approach

So which 2 nd tier Aussie team sells 6,000+ season tickets to fans that attend every game ?

I concur , it will be a season trying to avoid drowning , hopefully after they've get their feet under the table a meeting involving the new clubs owners , The RFL and the council can be held

Ultimately something has to be resolved with regards Odsal , if it doesn't happen , we'll be seeing this comedy all over again quite soon

Anyway , welcome back Bradford

A welcome bit of good news at last.

do we know who is involved yet ownership wise?

So having cut Bradfords funding and deducted them points in 2012 only to see them go back in to administration in 2014, the RFL tried deducting the Bradford Bulls points, stopped them signing players, saw them relegated and a massive cut in funding which saw the club liquidated in 2016.

With the Bradford Bulls now dead, the RFL have admitted a new brand new Bradford club just weeks before the season starts and an entire squad still to build, have thrown caution to the wind and tried something new, original and completely left-field. They have cut their funding and deducted them points.

I'm still intrigued with the RFL on this one,until all unfolds I'll reserve judgement.

Funding hasn't necessarily been cut as such in a way. I try to think of it like:

Old Bradford finished 5th, therefore would have got money based on this finishing position for 2017 (for arguments sake we will say £1,000 per position, 12th gets £1,000, 11th gets £2,000 and so on) so Old Bradford would have received £8,000. Then old Bradford were liquidated.

In the RFL's mind NEW BRADFORD gets a Champ place, due to it being so close to 2017 season and the League 1 clubs all have prepared for League 1. Plus needing to fill Summer Bash (Bradford take a lot of fans there, only Hull KR will take a significant amount if we aren't there) and they need someone to play at Odsal. So instead of being relegated we have been relegated to the lowest funding point in this league (12th position, £1,000). So not really a cut in essence. NEW BRADFORD starting from the bottom of the Champ table in terms of funding. Getting the same money as any other club who would have finished 12th (or last).

The points deduction I do not understand. New club should not have to face a points deduction as they have done nothing wrong. The only explanation I can think of is that the RFL needed a way to punish us due to not starting from League 1. There is uproar now about us starting in the Champ, imagine what it would be like if we started in the Champ without a deduction? For the record, most Bradford fans agree with most of the RL community in terms of we should be starting in League 1.

To stop clubs using this as a way of avoiding their financial responsibilities. Yes it's a penalty on a new owner, the players and the fans who has done nothing wrong, but ultimately that is the 'club' in it's entirety. If the new owner had bought the old club and payed the creditors no penalty.

As for the next 12 months possibly a tough time. In the last two years the team finishing 3rd bottom has achieved 14 points before the 8s that's having a team capable of winning 13 games with the penalty in place. Assuming at worst Bradford are no more than 2pts behind the third bottom team the 8s structure gives them a chance of finishing in the bottom two. It may be more the quality of squad that can be put in place by the start of the 8s than the 23 game pre-season Bradford are now about to enter.

I don't see that it does anything other than dissuade people from investing. People say it stops you from overspending in a way that suggests they actually believe it. It clearly doesn't. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. I do not know what should be done. What I do know is pretending it stops clubs from overspending is just that, pretence. If you have systemic and unavoidable costs and your existence is predicated on them then you're going to spend it, and if that then constitutes overspending what the hell else were you supposed to do? What if the governing body then makes those costs a key requirement of the new regime? (Clue: they have). What do we do when it goes under again, as well it might? Punish the next lot for paying it?

So again it's the Elephant in the room , Odsal

Is there anybody in the Bradford political/sporting community that can drive discussions , something , anything to provide a new home for a Bradford RL club ?

In Leigh we had a piece of land ( the former Barla pitches and an adjacent small field/dumping ground for stolen cars ) that was originally proposed to be used for the ' Xscape ' indoor ski centre that ended up at Glasshoughton

That got turned down by planning , we then had local ex copper ( and Leigh Miners Chairman ) Trevor Barton and a couple of others come up with the LSV concept

You need something similar I'd suggest

The should have gone one further this time and booted them out

Kiwis to the rescue. www.nzherald.co.nz/league/news/a ... d=11782310

Kiwis to the rescue. www.nzherald.co.nz/league/news/a ... d=11782310

I think the RFL gets unfairly bashed a lot of the time, but it seems to me it put itself in a position where it has a serious pecuniary conflict of interest in current events. That is very bad governance. By taking on the lease at Odsal it exposed itself to maintenance costs and now it needs a tenant there to bear (some) of those costs. The issue with the financial viability of the Summer Bash is a second conflict of interest, but arguably more manageable. So what is narrowly best for the RFL is not necessarily best for the new Bradford club.

The most sensible posters on here, the Bradford ones in particular, suggest C1 is the best place to start and at another, more realistically sized stadium. I'm not sure what is out there, some have suggested the Horsfall Stadium, I don't know, but I'm sure there must be somewhere in West Yorkshire, not too far from Bradford that would work whilst the club builds itself up. Without the same millstones being hung around its neck a Bradford club would have enough active support to get itself out of C1 within a couple of seasons and enough latent support to get back to SL in maybe five seasons. There's nothing more soul destroying than being in a league where you're not at all competitive and you've little chance of things improving without changing the fundamental basis of the club. This current solution does not change the fundamental problems that Bradford have faced it just gets the RFL out of trouble this coming season, and sets up a high probability that the new club will fail within three years.

Just to stir the pot slightly.

Why is the new arrangement better than the new people taking Bradford Bulls out of administration or, have they got hold of a Championship place for nothing (apart from the cost of assembling a full roster of playing staff and admin people).

The whole thing is just bizzare.

Also, what changes for the new entity, compared to Bradford Bulls. ie the costs involved in playing at Odsal, in front of reduced spectator numbers, which appeared to be the issue that was dragging them down.

It would be nice if someone could properly explain why things have been done this way.

Not booting them out and making a new club start from the bottom hasnt been avoided for Bradfords benefit. With a couple of weeks to build an entire squad and a 12 point penalty they are massive favourites to be relegated. Id say they were far more likely to be playing in the championship next year had they swapped with Toronto and started this year in League1 without a points deduction.

Maybe. There's a lot right with Horsfall for that situation but a lot wrong with it too. It is fundamentally an athletics track with a local topography that happened to make it convenient to run concrete terracing the full length of the 100m track. It is very much a local sports facility for the community and not a stadium. That terracing, which does now have seating, is all there will ever be. There are a couple of portacabins in the corner that are the club shop (Park Avenue), food outlet and toilets. Park Avenue have two lads wheel a stand out to go behind the goal. It holds twenty people. There's an old club house on the other side from the stand that is more equipment store for the park beyond it than anything you could use as a "corporate facility". There is *no* parking. At all. There is space in the entrance for three turnstiles.

Horsfall would be a statement of intent that'd shave a couple of thousand off the crowd on its own. And it might be sustainable there, but you see the problem.

Also, to me Horsfall means getting clapped in last in the 1500m when everyone thinks you're injured and plucky enough to carry on but actually couldn't be d and are basically having a strop about being there at all. I don't imagine watching Bradford play there will remove this association from my mind.

All that has been publically reported is that the liquidators rejected the offer made by the same investors to take the previous club out of administration. Time will tell whether the liquidators made a smart move, being uncompromising doesn't always deliver the optimum result. I just hope the new club's owners drove a hard bargain with the RFL over the Odsal costs.

The administrators rejected the offer from the investors. Quite probably the creditors who are all owed money by the Club (most likely main one being Green who had loaned his Club money) didn't like the offer on the table and probably hoped for more money. Maybe they hoped the investors would come back with an increased offer which once they didn't the administrator announced the club would go into liquidation. For the investors buying and retaining the old club would allow them to start with less penalty points in the Championship but whatever they were offering was basically money going straight out the door to fund someone else's debt. What level of finance was being offered to keep the old company afloat we don't know.

Whatever it was the investors can use that money instead in establishing the new company and club. The investors will have made a judgement on the benefits of taking this route (if indeed it is the same group). Let's hope the value of that is worth taking the 12 point penalty in the Championship, inevitable delay, all the players becoming free agents, with some now elsewhere and none of the information or materials the old company owned. It does allow a clean start and probably trying to negotiate a good price for the remains of the assets of the old company. I am sure this has already been stated several 10s of pages ago. What it does perhaps suggest is that they will have to be looking longer term to rebuild the club.

The RFL accepting the investors from an RL perspective is different to the decisions an administrator needs to take, but who knows how much the RFLs conflict of interest in the lease of Odsal plays within this. Whether the investors for the new company have already agreed a new lease with the RFL is anyone's guess.

I get this part. If they had bought the club before liquidation we would have got a 6 point penalty for going into admin. So only a 6 point difference. So with the debts at a reported £2.2million we would basically be buying 6 points with that. Is that worth it from a new owners perspective? No.

But with it being a new club completely. We have no debts of the old Bulls. Nothing. It's a new club. Should be on 0 points in League 1. The way the RFL have handled the situation has made a mockery of RL, although I am very happy I have a club for the upcoming season, it has been a joke of a process. These past weeks have told me that if a club racks up millions in debt, you can just liquidate and have a points deduction! So anyone in the SL can spend millions, liquidated. Get a 12 point penalty the next season and the strengthen for the 8's to stay up. Well done RFL!

Not quite debt free. One of the published requirements was for the 'new' owners to repay the rugby related debts of the 'old' club. From what I've read elsewhere that includes money owed to other clubs and a reported £50k loaned by The RFL to ensure November's wages were paid.

While the RFL are ' culpable ' in all this , what is more worrying is how the new owners are going to fund a million pound black hole per season ?

I'd have to agree. But the RFL was faced with some commitments for the current year as the fixture list was already published (probably contractual with Sky) and most clubs had done their planning on basis of division they were in, but it's not clear. And even if a number of clubs were prepared to step up they would be at a severe disadvantage which might have longer term damage on them. The RFL has probably taken a decision to manage the status quo but, it might become more of a punishment on Bradford given potential season ahead, like the Broncos in 2014.

As to process well there is a catch all in the operational rules (there are a few) which basically suggests it's at the RFLs discretion. So only after the fixture list for the following year has been published and the RFL is your landlord. This event might see the rules tightened further just as the Broncos (was it 2003) pretty much resulted in the current rules.

Why £1million?

Only way I can see it being better is that if the new owners had paid the debt in full (a reported £2.2million) then we would have been deducted 6 points still. New owners have taken over paying no debt and a 12 point penalty. So essentially the owners would have paid £2.2million for 6 points? Now if relegated had been included in the liquidation punishment, I still think the owners would have taken the liquidation route as it allows us to rebuild from scratch in League 1 (something 99% of Bulls fans want).

We have got hold of a Championship place 'for nothing' in a way. Which as I have said before now makes a mockery of the Admin/Liquidation process in RL. If a club gets liquidated it should start in League 1, for me Whitehaven or Workington should have taken our place in the Champ and we go into League 1.

The biggest thing that changes for the new owners is a massively reduced wage bill. Now that all staff and players are redundant we can build a smaller squad, last year we had a squad of around 46-50. It's not as if 15 of those were academy players on the fringes of first team. To put it in perspective, Keiren Moss was number 39, Joe Keyes was 43. Academy lads on the fringes would be cheaper. But I digress, the wage bill is massively reduced! Odsal is still a millstone around our necks which needs addressing. As for the crowds, I still expect us to get 3,000-4,000 per game. That is our hardcore base of fans and a lot of us can get behind a "backs against the wall season" plus a lot of them will want to reward the players who have stayed and trained even without the Bulls (Pryce, Peltier, Chisholm etc). Plus if Rohan is signed up again as coach a lot of the fans believe in him. We avoid relegation, he can build a good squad in 2018!

To answer your question as to why they have done it this way, well I will try. People have to remember that the RFL are not Rugby League. They are a business that runs the game, they have their best interests at heart. During admin the RFL passed TWO bids, the administrator rejected them both as he felt they didn't give the creditors enough (he basically wanted a good deal for his mate Marc Green, who wanted to get back hold of the club). New owners refused to pay him (he got us into this mess) so we were liquidated. With it being so close to 2017, in the eyes of the RFL it wasn't in the best interests of RL because all the League 1 clubs have prepared for a season in League 1 rather than the Champ so they would probably go straight back down and have a damaging season. In addition to this (I know it sounds biased but it is fact) the Bradford fans travel in numbers, so the clubs in the Champ will have budgeted for a payday on the days they play us (finances are that tight in RL) so to deny them this would be detrimental to the game. So we 'need' to be in the Championship.

Now let me give you the real reason we are in the Championship in 2017. The RFL own the lease to Odsal. They are paying £70k a year for the lease plus any stadium maintenance. They NEED a tenant, otherwise they would lose money and it would be difficult for them to get out of the lease. If Bradford were liquidated to League 1, the owners would not have us playing there. The RFL would still lose money. So they are basically holding us to ransom by taking our registration away. But trying to play it off as a reward, for example:

RFL - "Oh new owners! If you buy this club you can play in the Championship! We won't relegate you!! See we are doing you a favour!"

New Owner - "Awesome stuff! So we get to keep funding etc! And more attractive for sponsors etc than League 1! Thanks RFL, so we can play at Horsfall? Valley Parade?"

RFL - "Oh no no no! You MUST play at Odsal, otherwise we will not give you a registration to play RL no matter what the league! If this new Bradford does not play at Odsal we not allow it to play in our leagues!".

So they want to new owners to pay the cost of Odsal so it doesn't 'lose them money' anymore. In addition to this they need the Bradford club for their Summer Bash. With Bradford and Leigh there is damages the concept massively. For the past two season our fans must have made up around 60-70% of the audience especially on the day we played each other. Hull KR go some way to replacing Leigh but who will they realistically play if we got relegated? Again it protects the RFL's interests. But it goes a long way to helping destroy the games integrity.

Sorry for the long post. But I hope this helps in terms of your questions!