Don't be fooled by the £100 pledge but most importantly don't listen to some on here who are saying "we will be alright if we go down the administration route". Its not always rosy as in Wakey's case.

SL needs Bradford Bulls in SL. The game cannot afford to lose 10,000 supporters. Good luck lads.
Castleford Tigers Supporter.

Hope it works out for you lot !

Proposal

I'm afraid the discrepancy between public statements Hood has made in the last two months and the situation revealed now is too great for me to have any faith that giving the board £100 will help solve the problem.

If however I was giving £100 or more to buy shares in a non-profit company managed by a supporters trust (Bullbuilder) with a managing committee elected by shareholders I would do so immediately - this trust could then nominate and employ a CEO. All I would ask in return was a shareholders certificate I could put on my wall. I would be happy if this were arranged so that shareholders are entitled to no profits or dividends and cannot sell, assign, or transfer a share to a third party. This is the model the Green Bay Packers have used and they are one of the most successful sporting franchises (and the only community owned one) in the U.S.

In this scenario we would once again be the people's team and I would have something to say I was an 'owner' of the club even if that didn't mean anything in practice other than giving me a vote for who the management committee of the supporter's trust of which I'm already a member.

Given Bullbuilder already exists and I have more faith in the financial management of those organising it, wouldn't it make more sense to donate our money (£100 or whatever people can afford) to the trust and then perhaps we could arrange a loan as an interim measure to the club on terms that could see the eventual transfer to a new model of ownership along the lines suggested above?

How much cash would normally be generated from non season ticket holders at the Leeds game?

I could be wrong but I think the club would be hoping to raise 500k on top of the expected income from this game so although the all ticket idea is a good one I'm not sure it will be enough.

I remember the gut turning feeling when I thought Hull FC were going out of business.
Good luck with your effort feel for you all.

Correction SL needs a VIBRANT Bradford Bulls in SL perhaps, but to say NEED is a dangerous attitude, and probably one in line with the people who got the Bulls into this situation.

I just want to add that I hope that there is a positive outcome to all of this for the fans and people who are involved with the club who aren't responsible for this situation.

For info, We are holding an emergency board meeting tomorrow evening to consider the situation. We've also been contacted by Supporters Direct, the umbrella organisation for supporters trusts, and by the media asking for comment. We've told everyone that we'll revert after the board meeting.

This is a hugely important comment, that all Bulls fans should take note of; if you have other places to put your money that will benefit the club long term that should be your aim.
Otherwise the begging bowl will be out again in the near future and the people in charge will still be in charge after another bail out by the supporters.
put your faith in yourselves and your supporters trust.

I'm with you on your first paragraph.

I wish the second were somehow possible, but I don't see it. We are a big and expensive organisation and just meeting the weekly wages bill to say nothing of expenses must be a huge ask. I am sure that there are able brains in Bullbuilder but who has the time and the willing to join a new board to run an operation as big as the Bulls, and anyway where is the money going to come from between now and next year's season tickets?

I am struggling to see any realistic way out of this that leaves us as a recognisable SL force, unless the fabled sugar daddy picks now to emerge on his chariot from the troubled skies.

Cool. Agreed.

Hey Adey, I realise that you feel mightily F***ed off with all this but at times like these sometimes we need a cool head for figures and numbers on here. Keep us up to date with anything you find.

And if anyone wants to arrange a "throw tomatoes at the prat in the stocks" on the Odsal Centre Spot for funds then I will gladly donate my services. Must be a few out there who would pay good money to see/do that?

well im absolutely gutted on 2 levels - gutted that the club is in this position and mad that theyve left it so long before saying anything!!

secondly very concerned as we have 2 5yr season tickets that we paid outright for whilst we had some savings left and a friend has a 10 year season ticket!!!

i just feel sick at the thought of losing the club and sick that i could lose money thro our season tickets (and before anyone starts callign me selfish - try being in anyones shoes who has bought a 5 or 10 yr season ticket in good faith!)

just gobsmacked by the whole thing!

I hope the RFL are so proud of the Stobart lorries running up and down the country, all previous years the RFL sponsor money was a big help to clubs but the decision this year not to have a share out has pushed the Bulls to the limit. While you are all blaming Hood (and by the sound of it he is a wally) I think the idiotic decision by the RFL to go with Stobart and not have a share out is a major factor in this.

I hope the Buls survive and why cant all teams drop those stupid nicknames , come on northern you can get out of this

Tough choice now for the Bulls fans. There doesn't seem to be much transparity here from someone who wants your cash. Its alright your chairman saying 'give us this money and we'll be fine going forward' but is this the truth baring in mind past statements saying there was no financial issues? That was blatently wrong with todays news coming to light and i'd be extremely wary that the same could be true here. If you scrape together the 500k but don't make the £1m you all lose your money and yet the club will still go under? Would it not be better to keep the 500k as a fighting fund for a phoenix club and finally rid yourselves of the people who have got you into this position rather than funding a club that quite possibly will still go belly up 6 months down the line. Getting more money out of people to fund a new club will be almost impossible if they've already had their fingers burnt once.

Could the trust to set up a fighting fund and pledge to that instead? Take it over from the administrators and get rid of the current incumbents? Something similar happened wth Wrexham football club didn't it and they are now knocking on the door of the football league again after years of mis-management. I just get the impression pledge to this board is throwing good money away after bad.

Thing is didn't Bradford vote in favour of the Stobart deal?

Do not give your money to the club, give it to your supporters trust ( associated to supporters direct ) . Then if the board want your money the terms must be that the chairman of the supporters trust is appointed to the board. Then the supporters have a direct link to the running of the club.

I feel sorry for all the fans, and hope Bulls can pull through this. It's a shame I never got to see the Bulls in their prime, as their decline started as I began to get serious into rugby. Best of luck for the club!

Agree with this. I am happy to donate to someone to save the club. But not to someone to flush it down the toilet by the middle of April and come running back for more.

In fairness at least Mr P knows he is gonna get paid at the end of the month.

I agree, a good starting suggestion.
This is the kind of idea that the board should be looking at to fund the £500k rather than go cap in hand to us supporters who clearly will not be able to raise nor can afford. Have they no sense nor financial or commercial acumen

Throwing money at the current set up is a waste of time. Maybe the Bullbuilder fund would be better served trying to submit an application for membership of Championship 1 for next year. A new club with no debt and a large supporter base would walk it straight into the Championship where we can build from the bottom for the next round of SL franchises. At least we would have a clean slate.

This seems reasonable too. But time seems to be running out for anything to be in place.

Hi FA, I think we all know there is existing expertise at Odsal in terms of the employed staff and there's no reason the new management structure wouldn't maintain the current staff and CEO. The point is that we have a vehicle other than the present Board that could be involved in bringing about a change in ownership and pressing for a share issue along the lines I identified, and this could generate income.

The Board seem to be arguing that once this hiccup is over they have a sustainable plan - this might be the case, but i wouldn't want to leave the club's fate in their hands long term and there are alternative co-operative models that could work. The Packers have survived in Green Bay and in the cut-throat world of the NFL because of their structure and it has been written about extensively and lauded by sports enthusiasts and accountants alike. The revenue streams are obviously different in terms of scale but there's no reason why something along these lines wouldn't work with an RL team like Bradford.

We also have some outstanding expertise available within the supporters trust and if the model of ownership changed I think we could draw a lot more people in to share their expertise because of the nature of what we would be attempting.

I'm genuinely gob-smacked by this, hope you pull through it one way or another, best of luck

The previous sponsors engage paid either £1m or £2M for their deal, at the highest level that would equate to £142,857 per club per year, how has this pushed them over the edge? considering the £1M from the RFL and the additional £1M they now received, all inside 3 or 4 months.
Small potatoes!