I keep thinking of that as being a lease rather than a loan.

I still find it odd as to why we're having to pay it early. Normally when you enter into a loan or lease the repayment dates are fairly clear.

Are they saying that when it was converted from a loan into a lease the dates of rental payments became more frequent than the old loan repayments?

I think we were protected from the cash flow problems to some extent because of the £3m we received when we moved back to Odsal in 2003.

The £700k (seemingly) loan that the club somehow neglected to mention until this week. That did not show up in the 2010 accounts for some strange reason (I suspect because it was in "accruals and income in advance" as an advance of future income from Sky/RFL?). That was never mentioned by Hood at the forum, when, in response to my SPECIFIC question reagarding what the lease sale proceeds would be used for, he gave a list of various applications but somehow forgot to mention what the biggest item would be.

That loan.

The loan, knowledge of the existence of which would doubtless have confirmed what some of us had been very concerned about for a long time - that the club's financial position was far worse than was (understandably) being publically acknowledged.

And knowledge of which would have prevented me from making such a fool of myself for pedalling the club's "its all OK now" line in January.

It (the loan from the RFL) was also a question that I emailed to Stuart before the Fans Forum in Sept 2011 (as I'd heard about this from someone inside Redhall) that prompted a phone call from Ryan. It was confirmed that there had been a "small loan" to get them through and that the sale of Lynchy was going to ease that burden.

Spin, Spin, Spin
Lie after Lie after Lie

Whichever way you look at it, this Management Team have been at best non-communicative or at worst telling lies to cover lies and this is why, despite my love of the Club, I am wrestling with a pledge.

We are being run by people who are not fit to run the club. End of

It's these sort of half truths that make people reluctant to get fully behind the club. If they'd been fully open then they'd have more backing.

It's a shame because fans want to believe and want to think that those running the club are being straight. When it comes out that they were being economical with the actualite you wonder why you bother.

I pledged today and bought some merchandise. I do feel like it's all going to be wasted but I so hope I'm wrong.

We need a statement from the club, other than a close of business update on how much has been pledged.

we also need a statement from the RFL regarding possible scenarios.

When we get these, we can better assess whether the pledge will work long term or not.

So far, the RFL have told people to back the scheme. my feeling is that they have simply done this to back the club, just like they did on Janury 24th when taking the lease of Odsal. They have done us a massive service and have done as mucn, if not more than we should expect from a governing body. Then again, there's plenty of egg on their face selling SL as a brand if one of the 3 most successful clubs of the SL era goes under, when SL was meant to end this sort of boom and bust running of clubs!

We need them to spell out to us what could happen if we go into admin, or default on wages etc...

=#800000[size=200Peter? Just checking again...are you there?[/size

=#800000[size=200Listen to your Club's fans Peter!!![/size

I never knew the RFL 'did' loans.

I'm assuming, rightly or wrongly, that the 'loans' are in place of payments that should have been made by the club to the governing body; we couldn't pay so they 'loaned' us the money. As mentioned above, if that was the case I would have thought, again as already mentioned, that quite specific dates would have been specified for payments. The only reason I can think of for not mentioning this loan might possibly have been if the RFL didn't wish not to make it public, so maybe (I'm clutching at straws, I admit) there was some confidentiality clause attached?

That though wouldn't explain why it was called in early, or even if it is legally possible to insist on payment(s) being made before the due date.

I need to have confirmation that if the club gets to season ticket time again (6/12) - they will be relatively safe, relatively debt-free and the medium term business plan will allow us to live within our means.

And I would prefer to know what is different about next season in terms of increased income or decreased outgoings.

I can see that some pieces are in place for next season. The academy facilities. The young players who (at the moment) want to stay & play for the club.

The millstone of Odsal maintenance seems to have been handed on to the RFL. Although we now have to pay a commercial rent.

Some liabilities have been settled (good). leaving us cash-poor at the moment(bad).

If I donate now to get us to next season - will that be good enough or delaying the inevitable?

That's the £1m question!

Btw, do the RFL pay for the stadium upkeep? I thought it was still down to the club. That used to be a reason given at forums as to why we were skint until the last forum where it was said it was never a problem.

I find it hard to keep up.

I don't actually know about maintenance. I just assumed we would either be paying rent, or maintenance , but not both. Although we do still own the Coral stand I think.

I was told two different and conflicting stories at the forum regarding the maintenance. I was sort of given the impression that Bulls commission it, but payment is rolled in with the lease. But after recent events I'm not sure what the hell the tale is.

Yes we still own the Coral stand. Just not the land it sits on...

Hey guys and Gals, it Thursday, and dont let Peter Hood fool you into thinking its Friday and Almost the weekend!!!! He will try!

It's all very confusing. Makes you wonder if they really know what they're doing. Could explain the mixed messages on the ground. Maybe some people get caught up so much in how they think things may be interpreted that they confuse what they're saying.

On the issue of who pays for the upkeep of Odsal now it's as clear as mud.

According to the Bradford Bulls Twitter page we have reached £155k.

My recollection from the forum was that "nothing had changed in that regard" and the club had the same responsibility as before.

M@islebugs spoke of smoke and mirrors and I would just like to add that the whole franchise process (Crusaders and us are a fair slice of the teams assessed) shows that the smoke and mirrors principle applied very much to the clubs' disclosed financial statements and business plans. the people reading and assessing them must know that you can make a balance sheet etc look like just about anything you want to, and apparently did not have enough information in our particular case, unless a £700K debt that you can't pay is the sort of thing that should be invisible. And clearly we couldn't pay it. All that has changed is seemingly (and we are all having to guess) the bank reduced the overdraft facility so we unexpectedly had less borrowed money available to pay day to day debts.

Having got seemingly the all clear, at least Crusaders had the decency not to apply, but one question is, is the financial test allegedly central to the application process actually worth a flying fart?

Same here. And on hearing that I thought we were still stuck with a financial millstone. It was likened in the past by Mr Hood to owning a big old house in that repairs were expensive and tricky. This time he pretty much contradicted the line that Odsal was costly to run.

I don't know why the line changed.

So we are paying both the same levels of maintenance as we were doing but also now have ?quarterly lease payments on top of that. How exactly does that decrease our outgoings?

Dunno FA, and whilst I'm sure it's pretty important..well, of course it is, but right now I don't actually [igive[/i a flying fart.

You stupid boy...

I dunno. Now we know we signed Odsal over to pay off a loan it looks as if they deal was done to settle a debt rather than to reduce outgoings, at least I think that's it.

It certainly wasn't told like that at the forum and a few of us were taken in that it was an excellent deal securing the club's future. Obviously something happened since then to change things. RBS have been accused but it doesn't add up.

I'd like some clarity on all this, especially as we're being asked to prop the club up. It's only fair after all.

Well don't forget we received a huge big sum up front for the sale of the lease, all of which was available for setting against future expenses.

What was that I heard you say...?

Another thing - a few years ago when the £80m Sports village was first mooted

there were a few fans wanting to know how much cash we were putting in. I think I remember we were down for £7m - which at the time was put down as the commercial value of the lease. Does anyone else remember this or am I just going crackers

?

I think that may have been a commercial value of the land....I think our lease had always been a bit below the going rate as posters like Guess Who and the Bantam Menace would never let us forget.

And it doesn't help that RBS and the Bulls are putting out conflicting claims and counterclaims through the media, all clear as mud.