Grow up. 6 months is a long time in business never mind 6 years.

Surely they could only deem him to be "not a fit and proper person" on the basis of something in the public domain? Something for which his culpability has been independently established as fact. They would have to have an objective reason that could be applied to all SL owners.

His potential conflict of interest as an agent might be a factor but that's a different issue.

Given its the RFL, and the mysterious ways in which they work (or don't work...) who knows? Especially given we none of us know what really happened behind the scenes over Harrisgate. But, as I said, I'd not heard this before until several different people started referring to it, so there is no evidence to suggest it is anything more than hearsay/gossip/usual internet nonsense anyway. Certainly, I'm not aware of anything specific that could justify such a sanction, and I struggle to see how such a charge could justifiably be levelled at a practising lawyer anyway.

Forgive me butting in without reading the recent few pages, but with what authority has CC ordered the 'independent' (yeah right) review - presumably as controlling shareholder/s? If he was judged 'not a fit & proper person' what is to stop him pulling the strings, as he is now, without having his name on the door?

In response to an email Andrew Bennett said something along the lines that he did not think that CC would be judged a fit and proper person by the RFL. The person put it up on facebook(?)
and if I recall Bulls4Champ posted it on here. Stand to be corrected on any/all of this.

That's perfectly correct but absolutely everyone is going to come with some baggage and ultimately as fans we have no control over anything. For what it's worth, I think they are intelligent people who are capable of learning from past mistakes, in any case they are running the show now and my default position is that they will generally get my support, unless they show themselves to be unworthy of it. Not that I think there is anything intrinsically wrong in pointing out uncomfortable things from the past, and I for one aren't going to brush it out of memory - BUT, I think, for the good of the club, we maybe ought to let the past stay in the past and concentrate on what is to come?

If Bennett said that, I'm astounded tbh. Unless there is something petty big that we are not aware of, I really can't see what grounds there could be for making such a statement? I really can't believe its anything more than internet prattle.

Where's B4C when you need him? I can't have been the only one to have seen it. I thought it strong stuff when I read it but judged alongside the all the other revelations we've had since it's pretty tepid.

You're not the only one who saw it, and I think you're also correct about the source. A cursory hunt failed to turn up the post (could be in the middle of a thread), but it's there somewhere.

If memory serves, I think B4C took it from a post on The Firm's page on Facebook.

[url=http://viewtopic.php?f=19&t=525167&tsmp=1336758063&start=10There you go.[/url Scroll down a bit.

Maybe marginally more than just internet prattle after all.

Yes I did post it. It was on the Bulls banter page, apparently from a blog, by a member of this forum. I didnt know what to make of it.

Thank you Mr Bennett and Mr Hood for your efforts unfortunately it didn't work out but that's the way it goes sometimes. More high profile business men whether more or less successful than them have had to step aside or have gone bancrupt that's life and the world will still keep turning. I now look forward to seeing Mr Coulby and Mr Agar take us forward following the strategic review. I'm sure the good times are just around the corner.

What I will say though - and I feel I have every right to say this as I've done my bit without any return on my investment - the fans, the players and the staff of this club have been nothing short of fantastic over the weeks since this came about. We have shown a desire to make and have made the sacrifices necessary to take the club forward. It's now time for the shareholding to pull their finger out and match us. Fail us and you should be ashamed of yourselves. As Coulby said in the T & A after the board was restructured you were supposed to have meetings once a month but haven't had one for near enough two years and leave it until now to call for an EGM.

Sorry I'd also like to add. The Bulls have been running on a skeleton staff (at least it looks that way to me compared to other clubs) for a while. If the cash and/or opportunities aren't available to employ the staff needed to be back up there with the top clubs. What is wrong with doing something completely radical and asking fans to contribute time and expertise on a voluntary basis?

Also with all the amazing business minds that have appeared over the last few weeks since it was revealed we are skint - I really can't believe the country is in recession?!?!?!?

I had a quick look at the RFL rules on "fit and proper person" As I expected it refers to criteria such as not being disqualified as a director, not being insolvent, not being banned from other sports, not having an influential interest in another club, not having unspent convictions etc.

I couldnt see anything that would remotely suggest that CC would fail the test, certainly couldnt see how Harrisgate could affect it.

Indeed.

Clearly more than internet prattle, but still as far as I can see very unlikely indeed to have any substance unless the RFL were do their usual trick and make the rules up to suit themselves as they go along.

I'm not really sure of the legalities, but as 'Harrisgate' was ultimately settled out of court, wouldn't this mean that, to end the court case, Leeds would have withdrawn the accusation as part of the settlement? If the court never gave a final decision as to guilty parties, how can anyone be 'guilty' of anything? I may be being a bit thick on this but it seemed commonsense when I dreamed it up.....

All waaaayyy off beam.

* The case was Bulls v Rhinos. CC was in no way a party.
* It's a civil case, "guilty" don't enter into it (if you win, you don't owe money, if you lose, you do)
* The settlement was, we pay you loadsamoney, in return for you dropping the case. That's pretty much the opposite of "withdrawing" any accusations, more like Rhinos being vindicated (in hard cash) at their stance. (but yes, technically, nothing was established, except perhaps that we decided we were far more likely to lose, and they decided that it was worth doing a deal rather than run whatever risks they felt they faced). Still, and no figures were made public, but if the sums popularly bandied about are in the ballpark, then it was to my mind more of a capitulation than a pragmatic settlement between relatively equal combatants.

In its own way (yeah, I know) what you say vindicates my point.

The whole point was predicated on a suggestion, by other people, that the Harris business could be could be used to show an individual was "guilty" of "something" which would "prove" that individual to be "unfit to run a club". So, my point, that no-one was [iactually[/i found guilty of anything (all be it that I arrived at that view by following a wrong path, and therefore for totally erroneous reasons) was still actually correct.

I rest my case, m'lud...

Bulls capitulated because of the existential risk of not doing so.

Quite how we found ourselves in that position, and who was responsible, is something I would very much like to see made clear. I have my own thoughts, but I suspect we will never hear the full story. I just hope that whoever screwed up has learned a real lesson for the future.

The only lesson learned will be how to CYA more successfully and its not just Caisley I'm getting at, its the other Directors involved in running the Club from the past as well as present!

I just read the piece in sky sports about how your new chairmen is going to take you forward and i must say not the most inspiring piece I have read.

Couple of things, what happens if the review says its unworkable and he will start talks with "potential" investers soon, I thought I read somewhere he had investers already.

I really hope you can get this all sorted, I have always like Bradford.

Is it a case of CC waiting for the report to come back regarding how much Brown stuff the club is in and if in too deep saying to investors keep money we will put club in admin and then put money in once administrators are satisfied.

Ah is this straight out of the Wakey book for surviving by any chance??

That was PH's stance at the time. To be honest, I wouldn't doubt that a judgement which left us paying the full claim, C £3.25m IIRC, would have left us in excrement valley without any obvious implement to be used as a means of extrication. Just how likely such a judgement would have been though, is something I'm not even qualified to hazard a guess about, in truth.

there was never any chance of it being £3.25M. Harris was required to sign for one year for them, one look at the accounts for that year without him shows that Leeds did not lose £3.25m, nor would they ever had made £3.25m, even before you take into account what they would have had to pay Harris, and all the other offsetting costs. and then theres the question of how much of that £3.25 was legal fees, which are massive if a claim does go to court. So as Adey says, the costs of fighting to get the £3.25m reduced to a sensible figure were far more than conceding and settling for an amount that kept the club going. and Leeds happily settled for much less. As for who is responsible, an organisation is lead from the top, so Caisley was responsible.

Interests in two different RL clubs was included in the post above in the list of reasons for a person being unfit, ie conflict of interest. It may simply be that the RFL see Caisleys player management activities, specifically Bradford players, as a similar conflict of interest, that make him unfit. which would be a very different reason from a lot of the others on that list, more inappropriate than unfit. And may explain the consultancy idea, where the brief would be carefully defined to exclude any conflict of interest.