One of the Bulls main problems in recent years was that, even when staying within the cap, we vastly overpaid for the quality of players we signed. Mediocre players being signed on inflated salaries. Hence the quality of the team declined, the gates declined and it became a case of ever decreasing circles.

The cap only works as a means of ensuring financial viability if clubs get good value from it, which unfortunately we didnt.

Pursuing the Harris case must have cost them a few quid, one of many poor decisions by poor management

I don't think it was just Bradford that made that particular mistake. We've had our fair shar if over inflated salaries.

Yes but we knew we had the funds to back it up even if it was dw bankrolling it.

How can you blame the Salary Cap for Bradford paying more money to their coaching staff, groundstaff and whoever else they are paying than they do their players? Surely if there was no cap then they'd pay even more money trying to get a better squad than they have?

Their outgoing a month is around £300k apparently. The most that can go on players is £137,500

The SC has as one of its objectives the prevention of clubs getting into financial difficulties.

To argue that the 50% rule wouldn't have stopped Bradford getting into financial difficulties simply invites the obvious response that further rule(s) must therefore be needed to enable the SC to meet its objective; the alternative being to admit that the SC cannot fulfill this objective and is therefore a failure.

Don't you mean we had Central Park to back it up...?

Regulation is required to prevent people doing stupid things otherwise we wouldn't need regulation. If despite having regulations that have a stated aim of
preventing Clubs (from) trading beyond their means and/or entering into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements; clubs still trade beyond their means and/or enter into damaging and unsustainable financial arrangements the regulations have failed and are part of the problem.

Spot on. It's like saying that the banking crisis was the fault of the banks alone and that poor regulation was not part of the problem.

Your argument only works in the case of Bradford if the regulations control total spending. They don't, the cap might have an aim to help prevent clubs spending beyond their means but as has already been said numerous times but which you keep ignoring as it blows your argument out of the water, the actual reality at Bradford is they could spend nothing on the cap and still be losing money.

So in Bradford's case the cap could say you aren't allowed to spending anything and they would still be spending beyond their means, by your argument the cap would still be one of the reasons for the failure.

Which all goes back to my original point that the cap has sod all to do with Bradford's current situation, extremely bad financial management does.

The fact that the regulations don't control total spending is the point. The SC claims to have as an objective the prevention of financial problems, but contains ineffective measures to achieve this objective. If it was effective it would have prevented the bad financial management from doing the damage that it has.

So your suggestion would be that the RFL tell clubs how much they could spend on everything then, as that would be the only way they could control what the Bulls spent? At least that way BrettKenny might have a point about it being the communist cap.

As has been said numerous times but keeps being ignored (probably because it doesn't fit the cap is to blame argument), the cap is there only in regards to one particular area of spending which Bradford could be spending nothing on and still be living beyond their means. So zero to do with the cap and everything to do with the way the Bulls were mismanaged. I wonder how the scenario with the Bulls creditors plays out, "sorry about spending beyond our means but the cap made us do it". I'm sure HMRC will accept that and write off the debt.

My suggestion would be for clubs to be forced to provide detailed business plans and financial projections at the start of each year which would be approved by the same accountants who currently monitor the live cap. They would be forced to comply with their budgets (subject to a tolerance of x%) and, assuming people are still fixated on the level playing field objective, there would be a hard cap on payments to players.

The fact is that the RFL make a grand claim for the SC which it fails to live up to. If they and the clubs were serious about preventing financial mismanagement they would bring in a more robust system.

The regulatory environment allows clubs to overspend. Many would argue that the SC is actually counterproductive, in that most clubs are motivated by what they can spend on players rather than making a profit and so having a hard cap means there is little incentive for those clubs to raise income, making clubs getting into financial difficulties more likely.

Here Here to that!

All coaching staff have just been sacked and admin workers made redundant. Sad day I reckon.

Part of the problem here www1.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... 6/7858764/

Part of the problem here www1.skysports.com/rugby-league/ ... 6/7858764/

If they do go pop, and I really hope they don't, do you think the RFL will give special dispensation to clubs willing to take their players on? After all these lads have to earn a living and the majority of clubs will have filled their cap so they'll have no room to sign these lads on. Would be a real shame to see 25+ RL players out of work for the remainder of the year. Not to mention all the coaching and admin staff.

Possibly.

Gotta feel sorry for Sammutt, especially...second time it's happened to him.

As a player I'd certainly be worried if he came to my club next. Kiss of death...

Sad news for the people affected.

Another disgraceful day in the history of RL.

Would Wigan be interested in any of the players at Bradford? Their administrator must be looking to offload at this point.

Wouldn't mind having Elima in our side, particularly given our current injuries.

Macca could give him a smack on the training field then

Agree with a lot of that, in fact I also like the Premier League regulation that clubs have to prove quarterly that they are up to date with all tax, VAT and PAYE requirements.

The cap didn't make the Bulls spend a penny more than they could afford. But it's the licensing system that failed the Bulls (and the rest of the clubs) on this occasion.

If the doom merchants are to be believed, who could afford to take on extra players and not go bust?

Us? Warrington? Hull? Leeds? That's pretty much it.

You have to feel sorry for the Bulls fans, I literally cant imagine how id feel if this was Wigan we were talking about.

We have to be thankful we have a man as decent and sensible as IL in charge, oh for a few more like him in RL.