Something under handed is going on at the Bulls. This has a feel of someone trying to kill off the Bulls and start a new Bradford team with no debts. As you point out they are losing huge amounts of money each month and no attempts has been made to cut costs. The lack of action from the Bulls owner and RFL is noting short of disgrace. The Bulls situation is long standing and apart from now the £500k now i feel stolen from fans who cares about the Bulls and rugby league as a whole nothing has been done to cut the wage bill.

Seems the Muppet in charge of the Bulls atm seems more than happy for them to go into liquidation in 10 days. Its a real disgrace that a club of the stature of Bradford Bulls who less then 10 years ago were dominating the game is going out with a whimper at the behest of the crooks that are running them now and the previous bandits who was in charge. At least Dave Whelan reacted when we got close to going down and did everything he could to keep us up even the breaking of the spirit of the cap. That seems more in keeping in the spirit of Rugby League than an owner who does nothing but lets a once great club go bust.

The last 2 people running the Bulls should be banned from having anything to do with any Rugby side ever again. But i have a feeling that the guy who runs them now will let them go into liquidation and then start up a new Bradford side with no debts and put them in the championship next season and push for a franchise asap. How can a SL club fall short of £200k a month on a wage bill that for me makes no sense. I thought that the cap was live pity they did not check the balances of clubs accounts as well. RFL should be ashamed in expanding the game to places like South Wales, Wrexham, France etc and let one of the biggest clubs be run out of existstance in this way. I am all for expanding the game but not at the cost of traditional clubs.

I here Rangers are interested in buying the club so thry can be in europe next season - has anyone told them its a 13 man game !

Maybe because clubs employ people other than players perhaps? In any case the actual monthly salary figure is closer to £300k per month according to the administrator.

£300k per month.

If the bulls liquidate then surely they would lose all their players, how would they reform as a new club.

Depends how the administration finishes and if a Newco is formed that buys the good stuff - assets (not many), contract, brand etc. See many football clubs e..g Leeds and London Broncos on how to do it.

It confuses me.

So no one buys the bulls in admin.

So they liquidate, surely even if they don't own the ground the new company will have to offer the scrap value of the coral stand etc (which I beleive the bulls still own) or the HMRC, would be well within their rights to say that the money to buy is not enough and sell the stand to generate more income.

It does seam a bit of a con that they can just turn their backs on the money owed and then set up again the next day with the same staff, same owners, just no debt.

If somebody was to buy Bradford pre-administration then they would still have to settle their debts. If they buy them now.....they don't. (according to the administrator on Sky Sports News) but they would still need to find around £300k per month.

If the Bulls liquidate then a buyer can come in and set up a newco 'Bradford Northern Bulls' for example with no debts whatsoever and write all new contracts that would lower the wage bill. They can let admin staff leave without paying them etc etc. It's basically the same club under a new name and with costs that they can afford.

Isn't the HMRC clamping down on clubs that go into administration because of not getting the real term tax? As they had enough of mainly football clubs not being run as a business properly. Also wasn't one of the reasons why Widnes didn't get into the SL in the first franchise was because they went into administration in a previous regime and Lewis said although they had a new owner it is still the Widnes identity. From that last sentence wakefield shouldn't be in SL, I've confused myself now.

Congratulations. You have now passed the test to work for the RFL.

For somebody who has such strong views about the inept manner in which the RFL and its member clubs are apparently run I am always amazed that you have such little understanding of what is actually involved.

How much do you think Wigan pay in total per month on salaries?

£3.50 and a pie

Do pies count towards the cap? We may get accused of breaking "the crust of the cap".

Of course. Point is they are obviously still employing players "above their means".

If Bradford Went and they expunged their record, the table would become

Wigan P17 P28
Warrington P17 P25
St Helens P17 P22
Catalan P16 P22
Huddersfield P17 P20
Hull KR P17 P19
Leeds P16 P18
Hull P16 P18
Wakefield P16 P12
Salford P16 P10
Castleford P16 P10
London P17 P6
Widnes P17 P6

Saints, Hull KR would be beneficiaries. Catalan, Leeds and Hull would drop back a place. Salford the biggest losers. Top 8 qualifiers pretty much all in with a 6 point gap.

But what would happen to Leeds. As the only club to play them three times, they would suffer worst and the "Magic Weekend" surely means that just wiping the record isn't possible? Hard to see how the RFL can get out of that one, if it happens.

So how does this sit with your continued insistence that the salary cap is holding the game back?

Are you suggesting that all clubs that are operating at a loss should be obliged to reduce their player expenditure so that they exist "within their means"?

Suggestion that if they go everyone will just simply get two points for every game v Bradford. Might be an idea then to just set all those results at 26-0 (default scoreline) to everyone and its all fair. Although Leeds would get a gift two points as I just alluded to.

As my earlier post only way to address would be to dismiss all of Bradford's results and award every club two points from each of the voided fixtures whether the game had already been played or not no matter what the score had been.

Give everyone 4 points and a +52 points diff. Or alternatively just give everyone 2 points and +26 from here on in who play Bradford.

And that is the fault of the cap how?

How does that address the additional Manchester fixture for Leeds?

That third Leeds fixture means that no matter what happens, Leeds are going to be advantaged or disadvantaged in some way. If all Bradford games are taken out they'll had played one game less than anyone else.

If the worse happens (which I don't expect anyway) I'd suggest, all home and away fixtures v Bradford are taken off the records completely, but the neutral fixture Leeds had at Manchester stays on the record. That way all teams are being treated the same in terms of home and away games and Leeds play the same number of games as everyone else.

Nothing is going to be perfect but I'd say that's about as fair as it could be.

Because they removed the "50% of income or £1.6m whichever is the lower" rule. All clubs can spend to the cap limit now regardless of if they can afford to. As I am sure you remember this change was introduced so the cap could be "live" following the outrage from the likes of Cas at Wigan's cap-breaking antics. So it's not the fault of the cap if a club is stupid enough to overspend but it is certainly true the cap has nothing to do with ensuring clubs do not go bust.

well, we've not managed to sort out any concensus as to how to procede. what hope is there that the RFL can?

what a complete & utter mess

The cap have never had anything to do with whether clubs go bust or not. Whenever something like the Bulls situation happens the usual suspects come out with the usual tosh trying to blame the cap in some way, instead of focusing on Directors of clubs mismanaging the finances.