I agree.. but maybe in a different way. Something should be set up to help clubs going into financial difficulties because its happening too often.

Yes i know, but when asked to help your club or they'll go bust it's hard not to. In hindsight maybe it would have been better for the money to go into the kitty for a possible new owner.

I think when a club's in financial difficulty it's hard not to help regardless of how you see the situation. Just like i will with Salford.

Perhaps if the Bulls withheld Sky money had been ring fenced for something more useful than the other clubs lining their own pockets the RFL could offer more support to Salford. Apparently all clubs have been informed that the RFL is unable to advance SL payments in 2013.

Would have made more sense wouldn't it? I don't see the harm advancing money already due in the short term personally. Aslong as it's only done for a short time whilst for example a new buyer is preparing to take over.

But most wakey fans knew what was going to happen and posted on here at the time, guess bulls fans were blinkered

Oh apologies, the Bulls fans and the whole of the RL press must have missed the prediction of an EGM to oust the current board which effectively ended any possible investment after the pledge.

What that pledge DID do was bring together the whole club, from fans to players to coaches and officials. Personally I'm proud of how the whole club pulled together and we saw some of best rugby played in a long time. If we'd all sat back and said 'stuff the club, it's the directors problem' then none of last season would have happened.

Omar Khan bought the club because he saw that the Bradford community cared about the Bulls. Would he have been quite so keen to take us on without seeing such efforts from the fans? I doubt it.

The Wakefield fans need to move on, despite their disappointment that the whole club wasn't dismantled and players sold off for peanuts.

It's a good job they didn't have that attitude when the Bulls first went to them with the begging bowl; if I recall correctly, the Odsal lease situation was precipitated by the RFL having loaned the Bulls a massive chunk of cash, of which they failed to pay back a penny piece? As financialtimes has explained, the RFL took action to resolve that situation and the dominoes began to topple.

Personally, I don't think that the governing body should be required to prop up failing businesses; they should however properly audit the finances of each club when they carry out the licensing process, to ensure that they're not handing a 3 year licence to a club that is built on sand.

As for moaning about what was done with the 'withheld' cash - I hardly think the Bulls are in a position to complain about that, given the lengths that the RFL and to varying degrees, the other SL Chairmen went to to keep them afloat.

That's unfair and more than a little bitter; I don't think anyone wanted the Bulls to fail - rather, people were calling for parity in terms of how clubs are treated when in difficulty. I guess WTW fans had a more robust view than most, given that the season before the Bulls fiasco, our own club had been in a similar pickle and was pretty much hung out to dry.

Perhaps unfair on some but there was some degree of revelling in our plight and a fair percentage came from this direction. I'm sure it wasn't the case from all Wakefield supporters but it was still evident.

I dont think that people were revelling in your plight at all.
Many of the comments on here were made due to the perceived preferential treatment thet the Bulls received, some of which was only found out after the brown stuff hit the fan. ie the loan that was given 2 seasons ago and then the utter nonesense of "iconic stadium", which many thought was the RFL trying to hoodwink the sport, which as we now know was a smokescreen for other issues.
No sportsfan wishes to see the game in such turmoil and we have certainly endured enough to last a lifetime but, neither do we want to be fed information with such a slant that you fall over whilst trying to glean the facts.
In hindsight, a little more honesty and transparency from all parties would have helped both your plight and your standing within the game.

As I recall it there was a lot of support and advice given, perhaps there was some imbitterment but that was when it became clear 1) our advice wasn't taken in the spirit it was given, and 2) when it became clear your club was being treat very differently to how we were in similar circumstances!!

I don't think there was any revelling; you're mistaking the anger that many people felt at the obvious preferential treatment the Bulls received for a desire to see you go under.

I don't think that anger is assuaged by the fact that many of your supporters are now crying foul about the 'withheld' monies - that seems a bit rich, given the help you received from the whole RL community. I'm sure for example that Messrs O'Connor and Hetherington would be gratified to see Bulls fans calling for the modest additional allocaion of central funds that SL clubs have received to be held back for 'better uses', given the significant financial assistance they both provided when the club was on the brink of collapse.

If I were a Bulls fan, I'd keep my head down and my gob shut.

I think some Bulls fans are miffed that not only did we receive the 6 points deduction but also received this 'new' penalty of losing half our Sky money for the next 2 years. Perhaps Wakefield should feel a little less hard done by now as well?

Perhaps that 1.2 Million might have been better spent plugging the funding gap from Sport England that will cost many development officers their jobs in the next year?

But the new owners are getting on with it and have just secured the largest sponsorship in SL history (take note RFL as we begin SL with no major sponsor on board) to help plug the shortfall. Omar Khan and his team have some ambitious plans for the club, I just hope he manages to deliver them.

This shortfall/financial penalty could have been plugged if you had saved the £500k and put it into the newco as advised by us that bothered to take the time to try and explain.
As I understand it the financial penalty does not exist in the laws, and the reason the money has gone back to the other SL clubs as it was originally taken from this pot in the first place.
The SL clubs chairmen gave the ok to the RFL to use next years money on the proviso tgat what was taken out, was taken back out of the bulls pot and redistributed back to the other clubs.
I don't know if a similar deal has been offered to Salford, it certainly wasn't to us (some resentment yes, although we were a bad bet for the RFL at the time, but so were you and so are Salford.
Anyway what's done is done, we all still have clubs to support, you'll have to just take your medicine for a couple of years, hopefully having to operate on less money will make you a better run business.

The only problem with that scenario is that we were only advanced 2 or 3 months wages (less than 200k a time). This was basically covered by the remaining sky payments due upto the end of 2012 plus maybe 100k or so from next year. Certainly nowhere near the 1.2m being held back. The only 1.2m to come from RFL is the purchase price of odsal, But Iirc the RFL purchased odsal not SLE so doesn't make sense money being distributed to ther SL clubs if this some sort of buy back deal for the lease. That said new owners are planning a roof on pop side next year and can't see them spending major money on a stadium they only hold the sublease on.

Ah yes, the “alleged” £1.2M deduction in Sky monies.

Some people are saying it’s a fine for going into administration, others of a more cynical bent, suggest it’s a payment plan to regain the infamous lease on Odsal.

Nobody on these boards appears to know the truth and the powers that be are keeping tight lipped – a bit like when Bradford were lent the money in the first place.

What I'm suggesting is that you've had monies from the RFL to bail you out, do you dispute that?
considering that you now don't have a pot to p*** in where do you think the debts should be repaid from, or is it the same old bulls arrogance of thinking you're so important to SL that you can brush them under the carpet like the loans and everyone else will just put their heads down, tip their hats and ignore your financial ineptitude.

NEWSFLASH!!!!

Bradford Bulls are now a mid table struggling club along with the rest of us.
Get used to the s*** end of the stick

We were advanced our share of the Sky money and no it wasn't anywhere near the amount being withheld for the next 2 years.

I understand Mr Glover repaid some of the debt when he took over Wakefield. How much debt wasn't repaid though and was 'brushed under the carpet and ignored'?

The difference being that the RFL didn't bail us out and I'd go as far as to say were willing us to die because it would have conveniently solved a problem at the time.
Had the RFL loaned us money to keep us going I don't believe you would have found one Wakey fan who would suggest that we shouldn't pay it back, but all we hear from moaning bulls fans is how hard done by they've been because they've have to pay back money that was loaned to them in order to assure their existance, ffs stop whinging and get on with it like we has to do.

Not into this type of thread but just to make things clear Wakefield were awarded a 3 year franchise after they went bust we had an inexperienced team built for the championship Mr Glover took the club on without season ticket money and financed before the last board went bust and in good faith he repaid a significant number of local creditors what was owed, You went bust in the first ear of the franchise having been passed with a clean bill of finance only to go belly up, the new owner has purchased the club for the remaining 2 years on terms agreed between him and the RFL,he has agreed to go without the SL money after all he could have walked away from the deal.

In the spirit of the great British pantomime tradition......oh no you weren't!!
You were given money out of last years and this years pot, this was agreed by the SL chairmen and hence why you have to put the money back in it.

It's not really about who's admin was better, (they both boil down to bad management) but the Bulls and RL hierarchy collusion is all too murky i just don't understand why the Bulls didn't sell a player when they seem to have had bids?
Didn't Obst go to Hull while Glover was been proved fit and proper, or am i mis-remebering?

IIRC, both Obst and Ferguson were both sold at the last minute to raise funds for the administrator, whilst you guys got a sub from the RFL


The other issue was that at the time we looked doomed for the Championship, therefore players were probably quite happy to have a get out, whereas you guys were given a 3 year, grade B licence, even though your club was in financial strife.

Its easy to see why some folk may be bitter

The thing with the RFL in all this is that there hands appear to be clean until scrutinised further.
There's the licence process overseen by experts making sure that clubs are worthy of a licence and running the off field business well. They failed to note that in the Bulls case they were losing £1.1m per year, that's a big miss or a big covering up of something that perhaps the RFL didn't want the public to know, another club in a financial mess following us and Crusaders but this time a former giant and perhaps the club that typified the SL era more than any other.
Then there's the whole Odsal-gate scam, covered up by the RFL in collusion with the then BoD of the club to further hide the truth.
The administration itself was nothing less than a shambles, and at every turn the club and the playing squad was protected while non playing staff were made redundant and monies that could be generated for creditors via the sale of players never happened.
In all this the RFL have always distanced themselves from the actual facts, blamed or hid behind another body or tried to cover up the whole fiasco.
And still some Bulls fans feel let down and need to preach!!
I give up!!

We're doing allright arn't we. Cant be bad.