So not actually resigned then . Or handing over in an orderly manor?

Hopefully sense prevailed and everyone is looking forth best solution still for the club.

Couldn't the events of the past week proceeded in house then as it seems the unnecessary panic of the past week could have been avoided with some sensible talks. 3 musketeers still directing the business.

That sounds positive. But I know better than to get any hopes up!

Hmmm....

Maybe a mod should amend thread title to include and then step back up? Sounds like a game of musical chairs or poker being played at odsal at moment.

I agree here with Bulls4Champs that this could have all been done behind closed doors. It seems to me that the three directors are willing to carry on. If they wanted out they would have gone and not looked back. The fact that they are still talking and are willing to look at ways through it shows they are still interested. I have never played poker but I assume there is a game going on and the prize on the table is a rugby club. Initially, this news is promising but anything can still happen. I still expect 3-4 players to go so they can try and hit the £400k to make the club sustainable. If that is the price and we survive I am sure most of us will put up with that.

Nobody seems to know where the Bateman money went?

The 3 directors were running the club. Omar was the owner. Has anything changed? It seems not except perhaps Ok has realised a smaller amount of something is better than a whole lot of nothing.

This doesn't seem too stack up with Mystic Mick's posts where he stated them stepping down was a good move and a positive announcement was coming shortly.

I wonder if the securities company with the charge alleged to be on all assets was one of the important stakeholders, or is that another bum steer we've been slipped?

The wording is also curious for the reference to "final agreement over the club's ownership". If that is needed then it follows that at the moment, there is disagreement over it.

Really positive news. I for one am greatly optimistic that the RFL, latest Directors and other necessary shareholders are rolling there sleeves up and dealing with it.

hopefully working towards a "secure future over the clubs ownership".

Best but was his tweet today about the meeting as if he was in the know about it. Even though it was obvious that like the rest of us the first he heard was when it appeared in league express

"Continue to direct the business" is an unusual choice of words

Okay, (sorry in just trying to understand the situation) this is my brief understanding on the current situation, from the last big cash injection - can someone please correct me if wrong:

Ok pumps in 900k in loans, which with assurances from whitcut, ok believes will see bulls through the next 2 years

Whitcut botches the books, then announces the concerts makes profit, when asked to hand over the money, he takes out loans against the club to be able to hand over

Whitcut fails fit and proper person test at the end of the year, forcing ok to look at the books more thoroughly and discovering how the concerts did (potentially)

Ok steps down, and finds Moore and co to run the club, and agrees to sell the club on the assurance they pay back his directors loans ( I only assume here) Moore and co agree on the condition they can get in and look properly ASAP.

Moore and co discover whitcuts debts (that ok potentially knew about) plunging the club into financial crisis again, and call a fans forum to announce they weren't going to pay ok given these debts they were misled about etc.

Ok, hearing they were planning on not paying the loans, refuses to transfer the club ownership, so Moore and co step down.

Presumably tonight ok has promised he knew nothing about the extra loans and Moore and co have agreed to come on board.

Right?

What is certainly right is that the overwhelming majority of posters on here wouldn't be able to confirm a single word of your post, and those that are able couldn't to be trusted to tell the time.

Very weird. Good luck. Not sure I can say more than that, as it does seem a bit like musical chairs at the moment. Hopefully when the music stops the right people will be sat down.

I think Magic's summary fits with the chronology and the facts which have come into the public domain and is certainly plausible. The biggest problem of the OK era seems to have been that the people inside who should have know the facts didn't.

So now it seems that hopefully after a week of heading towards the rocks with no-one at the wheel the Directors have resumed their duties, but the rocks are still there and need avoiding.

Even with all of the goings on that have happened I still have a gut feeling that these three chaps are much better for the club than OK and Whitcut was. I wouldn’t trust Whitcut with anything. These three may not be multi-millionaires but I get the feeling they are hard-nosed business men who will run a tight ship and will put the club first even if that means tightening of the belts and no marquee signings for many years. They will probably run the club like three tight d accountants – but isn’t that exactly what we need for a few years till they can steady then grow things enough so they can give the coach the full cap to spend. If they take over properly I do still see a reasonable future although it might be mid-bottom of table rugby for a while.

They certainly seem to be prescribing the required medicine but originally it was the three plus Whitcut posing happily in the "family photo" in the terraces - hopefully they will steer clear of further business associates of his calibre.

As the Bulls' new dance craze, the OK Cokey, builds pace, there is so much contradictory information and so many unanswered questions that it's already clear we fans will never get far below the surface of most of it, let alone anywhere near the bottom.

However RW was reported as saying said an agreement had been made to pay back OK monies "owed" to him following the change in ownership in September.



Why did "we" realise? Who is "we"? presumably "we in context is MM and RW. What caused the realisation? Was the money unexpectedly unavailable? As purchasers from OK, surely it was for MM and RW to have finance in place?



1. If an agreement was signed to sell the club from OK to RW and MM then subject to any legal action to set it aside, in general terms, a deal's a deal.

2. Nobody seems to be saying who actually got the money from the Securities company, or what happened to it. If (as has been suggested) that money was a loan secured against the Bulls to repay OK then - unless it was just a stage payment - seems the figure he wanted to get was in the region of 180K.

3. Either that money is still there, or it has been spent on something else, or it was never actually paid. Does anyone actually know? It must have been payable to OKBL - so you'd think if it was paid, then it would have hit the club's account. If £180K I didn't expect hit my account I'd want to know what it was.

4. "The board refused to pay altogether and provided no legal basis for doing so". Indeed, and MM told the fans meeting that OK wouldn't get "a penny". The thing is, though, what would it have to do with "the Board"? If the deal was a personal deal between MM and RW on the one hand, and OK on the other, for the sale/purchase by those indivduals of shares held by OK? OKBL would not be spending Bulls money to buy shares in itself.

5. “It was the decision of the new board to challenge legalities of the debt" - But WHAT debt? If it is an alleged debt owed by the club then yes - but presumably it can't be. If it is a debt allegedely owed to OK by MM and RW then agan, what's it to do with the club? What standing would the club even have to "challenge the legalities"? And to cap that one, OK has always been very clear that his claims are personal against MM and RW - not against the club.

Can a club borrow money secured against its assets to repurchase shares in itself from a former owner? If it does, then who owns the shares? Surely, this could only be a repayment of capital or loan by the club, not a deal to purchase shares? Where's that Adey when you need him?

Discounting the "no marquee signings for many years" surely that is what the fans want to see and hear, after all, confidence is a great potion. Austerity is a fashionable word these days.

As for table placing's, reading the posts on here from last year, the players that were supposedly outstanding signings (Mr Sammut being one) really have not shown consistent form. I would rather think that consistency and doing the basics well, with an NRL attitude to every game will help a team develop and achieve wins.

I doubt there was ever a specific account called "the Bateman money", set up. Even assuming the money has been fully paid yet, as instalments are fairly common.

Per CA 2006 companies can make loans to directors but if more than £10k need shareholder approval, shareholder approval also needed if shares are pledged as security.

But this transaction seems to be have been for directors to take a loan from the company in order to fund their purchase of shares as individuals from the existing shareholder - and in the circumstances as he was also hoping to be the recipient of said funds he was not likely to withhold his consent. Though this kind of assumes that the transactions were correctly documented and approved. This does not impact the loans made by OK [ito[/i the Bulls but means the directors would owe money [ito the [/iBulls. It is a bit like a mini version of the Man Utd take over by the Yanks.

Sorry Northern, I've missed this. Where's this been reported/stated?

A loan from the Securities company, to be clear. I haven't read anything naming MM being in on this loan, just RW. But anyway, an individual/individuals take a loan from company C to fund purchase of shares in OKB from the owner of those shares. Seems straightforward so far.


Do you then understand it to be the case then that OK acted with RW in getting this loan, secured on OKB assets? It would be odd if the majority shareholder knew nothing of his whole club being pledged, but then again wouldn't it be odd if he was an active party to this loan, that he didn't see to it that when the money came in, he got the cash in return for his signature? In those circumstances, I wouldn't expect the money to go direct to the Bulls - they were not, after all, the person or entity borrowing it, they would just be the security). Surely it would go via lawyers?

If the money did end up in a Bulls account, it was still the property of whoever borrowed it (RW? RW and MM?) so I would ask why would it go into a Bulls account unless it was going to go straight out again as part of the share sale deal - which plainly isn't what happened - seeing it was seemingly never Bulls money available to be used for Bulls expenditure?

I'm increasingly puzzled. I know that's not hard, but still.