To be honest, I agree. I don't buy it for one minute and I wouldn't want us to embarrass ourselves by doing something similar.

Was just pointing out there is somewhat of a precedent for it.

That sounds like a workable plan, that wouldn't affect the placing either would it?

But I would expect the RFL to do nothing, as always...

Have a bit of sympathy with the supporters.
Just remember once upon a bankruptcy what happened when clubs all loaned players to Bradford to keep the club afloat.

Hence the reason for your existence.

And a lot of fans never let us forget it.

Absolutely agree, we shouldn't be in a position where these 2 points make any difference.

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/aug/18/celtic-crusaders-australians-visaslink[/url

The Guardian says it appears the players were playing under working holiday or student visas in the years 2006-2008. The 2009 visas were probably correct but based on the previous years.

we shouldn't but at the moment, they do.

The 6 players were with the club in the two years prior to entering SL. After all the time it took to pass the clubs visas at the beginning of this season I wonder why it has taken so long to come to light.
I can't see the Bulls lowering themselves to claim the two points, it would make them a laughing stock. Incidently we can't speak from the moral ground, I recall us signing Morley for the 2005 SL finals, and the following season we were shown to have gone over the salary cap.

To be frank, the Crusaders would have to start injecting people with cancer before I would start to consider Halifax, Tolouse, Widnes or Timbuktu as a better option.

They as a club are utterly vital and I'd like to see every one of the rest of us shut our luddite clacks and send them some young lads on loan.

It's your opinion and everyone that disagrees with you is a luddite?

If you read on I make a similar comment. I feel desperately sad for the fans and the young welsh players in their colts team.

The problem I have is with the RFL and I think the best thing would be to re-establish themselves now in NL1 with the same qouta and cap restrictions as everyone else and let them grow organically as they should have been allowed to in the first place.

No of course not. But if you favoured Widnes and Fax ahead of the Crusaders I think Luddite fits the bill perfectly. Particularly as these so 'core' clubs also have lurched from disaster to disaster.

Fair enough, just wanted to clarify, I read it wrong. My apologies.

I can understand what you mean. However I do think Macbull has a good point that maybe Celtic should have been given a bit more time before putting them in Super League. There seems to be a huge push at the moment in the Co-Op Leagues to try and make sure teams are financially set and run well above all else. Celtic could have done with some of that I feel.

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_league/super_league/celtic_crusaders/8210795.stmNot even trying it.[/url

something else quite important from that article:



somebody at the RFL has a lot to answer for.

Or somebody at the Club

It's either the RFL that allowed the players to be registered without proper paperwork, the club made inaccurate applications (which should really have been spotted by UKBA) or UKBA for issuing the paperwork incoorectly and then not spotting the mistake afterwards.

Something stinks here and I guess the RFl and UKBA will now be running round trying to work out how they can deflect the guilt away from themselves.

I guess the club have done nothing wrong as they would be prosecuted and I can't see any mention of a prosecution in the news reports.

None of this is the Celtic fans doing and they are ultimately the ones that end up paying.

We obviously don't and probably won't get the full picture here. Who is it that fills in these visa applications?

I think the club should have spotted the mistake and the RFL most definitely should have spotted it.

Having never seen what the visa document looks like, I assume that it must be a massively complicated thing for the club and the RFL never to have noticed.

Would the player know anything about this themselves?

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/super_league/celtic_crusaders/8210795.stmwere not gonna be asking for the points back[/url

Which is good casue we would of been on a hiding to nothing

af linked this at the bottom of page 3

you dont read one page and look what happens

!!!

Not sure anyone can blame the RFL over the Visas issue. They checked all visas in Dec & Jan and all were found to be valid AT THAT TIME.

As I understand it, their current visas were perfectly valid, but were based upon the fact that they had had valid visas in the past. It now appears that they did not for previous seasons (ie when Cru were in the NLs) as they had working holiday visas which the Borders Agency have since deemed as not good enough for semi-professional sporting purposes. Therefore, their current visas have been cancelled with immediate effect. It is possible to appeal this decision, but only from outside the country!

What is less clear is the involvement of the Club in helping these players obtain visas. Did they deliberately mislead the Borders Agency or were they working on the erroneous assumption that they could play with working holiday visas?

There have been a lot of cases in the lower divisions where players had been playing on working holiday visas.

The "work" you undertake is supposed to be incidental to your time in the UK, and not the reason you are here - at most NL clubs this wasn't much of a problem because they are part time and a couple of training sessions a week and a match during the season could easily fall within the criteria.

A lot of NL clubs had problems getting Aussies in at the start of this season due to some tightening up of the rules, it wouldn't surprise me if some follow up from that has led to what has happened to the Celtic players.

It's good to see the UK Borders Agency doing everything they can to keep these people out of the country. They were a threat to society and the british way of life. I mean calling flip flops thongs today mass murder tomorrow!

To be fair serves us right for imposing our convicts on the aborigines hundreds of years ago. Karma and all that