Because the above is NOT ENOUGH, we - that is, the Bulls fans - must repay all the debts. Personally. Cos it is our fault.

Relegation next year a certainty. No one messed about this year. RFL get to keep a club at Odsal.
No money, no support, as who is going to pay to watch a ramshackle team get smashed every week?

Shall we start Administration 4 2017 thread now?

The Fax board is quite restrained at the moment. Only Nat has taken enough umbrage to come on here.

The Wakey board is slightly less restrained but what they've got to be bitter about is anyone's guess.

After today the last thing that bothers me is what others think. I suggest we look forward to the next round of the rumour mill which will be beginning in earnest to reach an exciting conclusion within the next week or so. To anyone out there forming a new club I still have a pair of boots in my car and might be persuaded to come out of retirement.

The RFL solution feels a bit like when we limped through the 2012 season. 2017 will be the same but with a fraction of the supporters and probably see us lose nearly every game...if we even make it to the start line.

Shhhh you have the fax fans foaming at the mouth1

'No Longer a big club' and all that

My reaction to this comes from a place of paranoia, I will admit it. Its a result of being on the bad end of RFLs favouritism of certain clubs for several years. We get denied a franchise for years when clubs like Broncos and Celtic are given every advantage and squander it. I can't help but imagine the assurances they will have given the new owners in private. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it emerged that you weren't able to be relegated for two seasons, as you are a newly formed expansion club "expanding" down the M606. That is how much I trust the RFL, nothing at all to do with Bradford. You are just the latest "benificiarys" of the RFL's make it up as you go along approach.

The game is dying on its because the RFL are the most incompetent administrators of professional sport in the world. They make Fifa look like a well run machine. The situation you find yourselves in today attests to that.

Making Bulls 2017 in the absence of a millionaire backer play in the Championship sounds like utter madness, so perhaps there is a bit more to it than meets the eye.

Am I missing something here?

To start the season on -12 and avoid relegation, we would either need to go full time again or at the very least have a decent quality part time side. However all the best part time players are already signed up, so that isn't really an option. So we once again full time on lowest funding in a desperate attempt to retain Championship status, if we fail are we surely not back in the same boat and facing financial problems again? Even if we manage to avoid relegation, we have another season in 2018 on lowest funding to contend with. Whoever comes in, either has some big shortfalls to cover or 2017 is just a year of making up the numbers before dropping into League 1.

Start it now. 460 pages is a helluva target.

I suppose it depends how people look at it.

How I look at it, is that as a rugby league club, in the sense of a large group of people coming together with a shared aim and love of playing and watching RL in Bradford, there's no change, all of that is still there and will carry on. The history is still retained and held in the memories of the clubs members. The colours, the traditions, the ground, the songs, they'll all still be there, which ever league Bradford end up playing in. All that's changed (or will change) is the limited company (the legal entity) running the Rugby League Club.

A RL Club is different to a Limited Company owning/running a RL Club, in my view of course.

Some (like the Fax fan with the semi on a few pages back) will no doubt say that you're a brand new club and have no history, I think that shows them up as the small minded individuals they are to be honest.

Maybe when the new company gets formed we can do a load of flyers and send them round the schools of Halifax.

Must be a few supporters from that village that can be converted to "New Bulls" fans?

Ohh and its also worth noting that Nigel Wood is to Halifax what OK and Marc Green are to the Bulls. He sent us down the divisions, then somehow gets a job running the entire game.

Yeah but we're still a big club

Exactly.

When you make stupid statements like that it shows how stupid you are. You have personal knowledge of every professional sporting club in the whole, wide world?

I take heart from the fact that the RFL agreed to 2(?) of the prospective owners. i.e they were considered to have sufficient funds they were willing to put into the club. They were rejected by the Administrator because they were not willing to pay off debts they had not incurred.

Why OK? He is one of the few people in the UK who never bust the club.

I am sure we could find 17 on here who can still bend over far enough to lace up our boots. When we all run on it would look like 13 Jeff Grayshon's hobbling on though. Bags I play hooker. After 5 minutes I will need a bloke either side of me holding me up.
Who wants to be coach?
Is Foxy still alive? He liked the older type of player.
Some of the wives on here could be cheerleaders. From a distance they may look OK.
My secret source has told me the tea lady has jumped ship so we need someone who knows how to boil a kettle.
OH well, I'm sure it will all look better in the morning.

Looks like exactly that. And that's the best case scenario.

It would make sense for Sheffield to buy the "franchise" of Bradford, as they already have a half-decent championship team but nowhere to call home.

Surely that team would do better playing as Bradford (not Sheffield), at Odsal, and as an existing club they wouldn't have the 12 point deduction. Otherwise they are a dead club walking.

Seems like a possible win-win to me as a decent team at Odsal would surely be sustainable and Sheffield have had many years of financial prudence.

Firstly, can I just say I was genuinely gutted when I saw you'd been liquidated as I wouldn't wish this on any Rugby League club, and I certainly wouldn't know what to do if it was Wakefield.

But I cannot get my head round a 'new' club being fast tracked to the Championship, and why the same 'new' club would have so suffer a points deduction? It's seem to be anything but a new club in my eyes. Part of me feels the RFL are trying to protect the players, staff, fans and the game in general by coming to this decision, but the cynic in me wonders whether they'd have come to the same agreement had they not had the lease on the ground? Maybe they would, I just don't know.

But also, assuming some of the top players find other clubs, which I expect them to do, you'd be left with kids, squad players and lads other side don't necessarily want. Together with the 12 point deduction, his would leave you looking odds on for relegation and where would this leave you then? Would whole process just start again? If so it would just prolong the agony.

I don't think the RFL are bent, I genuinely think they have the best intentions at heart, but somethings seem ill thought out. Personally, starting in League 1 with no points deduction would be the right way to go about this. Start from the bottom and build up.

Just my opinion, but good luck either way.

They'd (presumably) still be saddled with Odsal, no players so over a barrel - signing dross for poor value salaries - plus recruitment costs, lower gates (I've already bought a season ticket for this year from a now liquidated club I don't have any money left to go and see another one), no sponsors, no coaches (see players above), no staff - plus recruitment costs, new outfit meaning no credit from suppliers (everything paid up front impacting cash flow), no equipment for running a club meaning it all needs to be bought (no sponsors to pay for that either), no players jerseys etc. etc. etc.

Plus you'e got to get the bid together by Friday.

I'll be amazed if it a) happens and/or b) is a success. If it happens I can only see that club ending up in the red as well.

I've no idea what the consequences of this will be for the other sides in the league. I won't be around to see it so couldn't give a .

Maybe we should pin the rfl email address to the thread so any of our so righteous "friends" can take up their whinging with the only people
Currently involved in any decision making?

I have no idea how this will end with the proposed new club. All I do know is the club I've followed for 4 decades died today.
I am in no mood for p!ss artists telling me what should happen in 2017 or 2018 and how it's still somehow our fault.

For the record I think any new Phoenix club should start at the bottom, c1, with no points penalty. I feel sick.

Read it again "professional sport" not professional club. Big difference in the numbers.

Well I for one am pretty convinced the RFL and some bidder must have a Plan B because otherwise what they are proposing makes no sense, it would be crazy to pitch a brand new club with no players or staff in at the proposed level. Just crazy. Couldn't work.