Kosh, dont misunderstand my drift here and I dont wish to kick a man when he is down, but the Bulls are clearly not one of the 14 strongest candidates as the current plight shows.
If the state of the game is that clubs wouldn't pass "a more stringent check", then we have all got a problem and as one or two have suggested, we may need to revert to a semi pro game and not the full time sport that we presently have.
FWIW, I really do hope that your team come out of the other side and that you can once again be a force within the sport that we all enjoy so much.

i think we should have a meeting organised every year in November.

In this meeting will be:

Ray French,
Stevo,
Gary Schofield,
Jonathan Edwards,
The pope,
Barrie McDermott,
Ronnie Laughton,
and Dido.

Chairing the meeting will be Claire Baldwin.

They all get to choose their 14 'best' teams from all RL clubs Championship 1 up and the following year it is these teams with the most votes that play in the elite division.

If any of these chosen teams go bust/enter admin, or run out of pies on a matchday they will be removed and placed on a 3 year ban from the elite division.

The league will be called - The A team.

and it will be sponsored by.....wait for it - You know them drumstick lollies - Them.

each team will only be allowed 2 'non-british' passport holding players and clubs can only spend 50% of their previous years revenue.

Sorted!

oh yeah!!! the meeting will be held at Frankie and Bennies Junc 32 Leeds (after normal serving hours to avoid disruption)

The current plight shows what they are now, not what they were when the licence was awarded. And, once again, they had one of the 14 best licence applications.


Clubs went bust in the semi-pro days - ironically enough, Bradford included. I'm not convinced that RL clubs are run any worse than pro clubs in a number of other sports TBH. There are fewer rich folk willing to prop them up though.

I remember the semi-pro days. The pro sport is a better product IMO. It would also hardly be a simple transition. For a start there's now a whole generation of pro RL players who have no other means of earning a living. What do we do - throw them all on the dole? Let the best and the brightest go to RU and be lost to the sport?


Erm - I'm not a Bulls fan.

I really don't wear rose-coloured glasses you know.

Each administration was distinct and unrelated to franchising. Crusaders couldn't sustain themselves on their crowds. Wakey was being chased by the taxman but would have been okay if the ground hadn't been called in, as they were due an advance payment once Planning Permission was granted. Bulls have made bizarre business decisions, like letting everyone go to games for a third of the price.

All point noted, so i withdraw my sympathy for your club being in peril.

However, although clubs did go bust pre-super league, their place in the top division of the competition was based on their on field performance and not some set of bogus criteria and yes there is a long list of clubs that had troubles, sadly many of which no longer exist.
The Bulls situation does ask questions about the validity of their SL licence and perhaps more importantly, asks whether there is a more fundamental problem with the general state of the games finances and both of these issues should be addressed.

WTF does Gary Schofield bring to the table????

Isn't it human nature for clubs to overspend? The fans would expect clubs to spend every penny of available money on strengthening their squads rather than the directors pocketing a profit, which means that clubs will always be run on a financial knife edge. All this thread is people whinging that it is all the fault of franchising and the RFL. How is it? If the RBS hadn't called in the Bulls overdraft, would they be in the mess now? How do we know what the Bulls plans were beyond this year? But no, let's all slate the RFL for not knowing that a club was being run in a way that was financial mess. They wanted a business plan and reassurances, not an in-depth analysis of their money.

Sports clubs are run on a knife-edge. That was the whole point of the salary cap, because clubs would overspend more without it. So Halifax fans need to get off their high horse. You've made your feelings clear: you want to stay in the lower league. Good. Stay there, and leave the top flight clubs to run their own affairs.

Of course it's related to franchising. Franchising is unfair. It prevents teams qualifying to play in the top flight by their efforts on the field. This is clear. So why do we have it? The claim was that the absence of P&R would put a stop to teams over reaching themselves financially in order to gain admitance to or remain in the top division. What's happened at Wakey, Crusaders, London and now in spades at what was one of the Leagues' top clubs Bradford proves that this claim is what many of us thought it was in the first place - hogwash.

It's a far fairer system. It takes the whole club into account over a number of years rather than simply on-field performance in 1 year.
No it wasn't. It was claimed it would help clubs to stop over reaching themselves financially. It has. If, with licensing & a salary cap, clubs are still spending more than they bring in - who's fault is that?
Yes let's look at what happened. Wakey's owner went bust due to his investments outside RL, Crusaders owner buggered off, Bradford -we don't know the full picture yet. Please describe how licensing was to blame for these things.
London haven't gone into admin under licensing, that was under P&R, so well done for successfully sh|tting all over your own argument.

Which one ?

None of Bradford, Wakey, or Crusaders went bust trying to gain promotion or avoid relegation, so I'm not sure why you think their plight has any relevance at all to franchising. They could just as easily have made the same mistakes without franchising being in place.

London's problem is low crowds, and again has nothing whatsoever to do with franchising.

You may well feel that franchising is unfair, but using the recent crop of financial issues as some kind of proof of failure is way wide of the mark.

Both. Now that [iwas[/i a fiasco from start to finish.

I seem to remember myself and others stating as such at the time , but would you all listen ?

Are you Kosh in disguise.
How can a franchise system wich is open to interpretation be fairer than promoting the strongest "team" from the division below (ie the club that finishes top)
Remind me where Widnes fiinished in the championship prior to being promoted and compare this to where Featherstone have finished over the last few seasons !!!!
The current system may have been brought in for good reason, although IMHO, it was to allow Crusaders to queue jump. However, how can a club in administration be deemed stronger than a club which is not ?

You mean selective abuse

And too protect the Catalans and London

Quite ridiculous isn't it

Why would it protect London? They've never finished bottom with or without p/r

I dont think finishing bottom is relevent in the modern world of franchising ?

Because like the Catalans if they did finish bottom , their very existence would be brought into question under a P and R system

Dont act stupid , it just makes you look stupider than you already are

I disagree. I think the London club in its current guise would be far more suited to playing in the Chp, unlike Catalans I don't think they'd go to the wall and secondly I dont believe for one minute that with a wealthy backer they'd be in the position they are now if there were P/R

Maybe now or the near future , but 4/5 years ago , there was still hope that the london club could actually make a viable SL club , they get Championship levels of support , but would they still get that level of support in the Championships ?

Explain that one ?

The same as Dildo.

For exactly the reasons I stated. It takes into account the club over a number of years rather than the team in 1 year. If you are so opposed to the strength of the team being the deciding factor then why are you annoyed that Crusaders were brought into Super League?
SL was expanded by 2 places and it took the top 2 teams in the NL. If there had been P&R that year then Crusaders would have been promoted anyway.

Leighton Samuel

First off, possibly not but I think they'd have enough to survive at a better profit/loss ratio than they are now, if we take the Crusaders example, despite being a losing team they get great crowds for a C1 club. In Londons case I think they'd enter the Championship in a much stronger position and as a perfect breeding ground for London youngsters, even if they then were to be cherry picked by SL clubs. The fundamental problem would come when financially all the best talent in the area is being cherry picked by union clubs but is that not already happening? who knows.

Secondly I meant with the finance they have in place, were it to be a P/R season, I don't for one minute think the results thus far this year would have been stood for and they'd have strengthed in the back room and playing staff by round 10. Powell, as much as I like the guy isn't up to it and he's made huge mistakes in his conditioning of the players, similar to that of Lowes' a couple of years back. With P/R I think a new coach would be in now with a couple more players