Curses. Cover blown. Now the buggers will expect me to buy the bloody club out of my small change.

I realised that you were nowhere near as intelligent as you (and Adeybull) think you are when your edvidence that the RFL were dragging their feet was gossip among a few players and Mick Potter. Lightwieght stuff that would be laughed at in a school debate. But you thought it was top notch and that's all that really matters...



I am glad I have not irritated you lil FA. Otherwise we would see one of your trademark posts were you go through someone's pov point by point. Each time desperate to try and gain say them. And if people do not wish to address every one of your dreary comments you seem to think there is some rule (inside your head) that they must do so. Its a tad narcissistic sweetheart.

I must say when I mentined to adeybull your 'masterful' (

)presence I could not have anticipated you would write a line like:



i am told this type of stuff is very popular in works of fiction. Is that your own line or did you borrow it from "Fifty shades of Grey"? I am sure Anabull would be very keen to know the answer.

Now, crack on. Break this post down into sentences and show us how clever you think you are, and if you are not certain ask the players and Mick Potter. HTH

If this thread degenerates further into pompous pi55 taking any further I'll be forced to do some work editing and frankly I don't have the time.

In dshort please stay on topic.

So despite that they have known for 3 weeks and could reasonably have expected this for longer (in fact since the Bulls went into admin in late June), they still have no announced process for deciding this and have admitted as much.

"The RFL said its board will make a decision on how it will determine which competition the Bulls will be playing in by the end of this week, but it is not clear when a final decision will be made."
[urlhttp://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbulls/9925200.Bradford_Bulls_ace_Kearney__We_feel_totally_hamstrung/[/url

In fact they already have rules for deciding who's in SL, it's called the licensing criteria and the problem wasn't that those are necessarily wrong it's that the Bull's management failed to stick to them and failed financially. If they wanted to announce a mini licensing based on the existing criteria (which is good enough for every other club in SL) then there is no reason they couldn't have done this immediately after ratifying the Bulls RFL membership.

Please don't Bullseye. I was going to put another a troll on ignore but I'm glad I didn't - I'm really enjoying this one, (s)he really is just too funny for words, just like a kelly in a budgie's cage, it gets knocked down and, oh cripes, it just bounces up again!!

And I DID try to warn it that it was likely to get a good 'Varking (which I was looking forward to)...you all saw that I DID try? Hardly our fault if it would not listen?

So have we concluded just why the RFL are dragging this out so long?

probably because in the background they are checking to see if Fev, Fax or Leigh can put together a credible package to bid for a mini licence.....no point having a process if the 3 teams mentioned can't put together a bid. If they can't an SL clubs want a 14 team league then the Bulls are in, if they can then the RFL have at least gone down the route of appearing to make it look like there is a fair process for teams to gain entry to SL before they then decide that the Bulls have the best bid

I explained earlier that the criteria and the assessment used in 2011 did fail. And that those criteria were based on 3 year cycle and the 'new' club was to be promoted from the championship. Now we have a shorter cycle, the assessment of the Bulls finances was potentially flawed and one of the potential SL clubs is a new company. So the 2011 criteria and assessments may not be applicable. If this is so then a different approach is needed and creating it may take several weeks.

I agree with you that this considerable inconvenience and the need to try and create a new assessment system at short notice is primarily the fault of the old Bulls management. Most unfortunate.

i am sure you do look forward to a good varking Anabull. Do your sources tell you that OK Bulls got all their paperwork etc to the RFL by Sept 4th or did it take a tad longer?

I'd guess theres some truth in this.

I still say the licensing criteria isn't wrong but the assessment of the finances has been shown to be wrong in the Bulls case. Nobody else has failed financially and the Bull's haven't failed in the other criteria so it suggests that the rules are actually pretty good.

The 2011 criteria are the criteria every other club in SL are adhering to so why should any 14th club (not just the Bulls) be assessed by stricter criteria?

But the sands have shifted. And the foundations are crumbling. And some of the more astute of those involved know this. Not that you have to be that astute to read the code in various recent statements and relevations.

I think they are still assessing it against the 2011 criteria. Or a revised one where they have corrected the flaws so they know EXACT finances etc. Wasn't it reported not long ago that Halifax made a £20,000 profit. Would they decline to come up if selected because they face potential losses?

That's apparent, so the RFL are playing politics to avoid being tied to a particular outcome in the event any other club sadly goes in to administration. The effect of this is the Bull's are left in limbo and other clubs and players can't plan ahead with any certainty.
Their operational rules are vague enough to be able to deal on a case by case basis without breaking any rules, so there is still no practical reason why they can't deal with the 1 currently in front of them.

Does have the practical effect of appearing to punish us by ensuring we cannot be competitive next year, regardless of what their actual motives are.

Getting the assessment of Bulls finances wrong is a substantial error. There are a couple of clubs just about clinging on.

Not saying the criteria have to be stricter , different. SL looked at things like attendances over 3 years, whether clubs had won the N Rail cup or got to a GF in last 3 years. We have had less than a season of the new licence period. There was nothing in the 2011 criteria re assessing a club that had gone into admin and been taken over. dealing with these new variables is not impossible, it may take time and this works against whatever club gets the green light.

The assumption here, when people say the RFL assessment must have been poor as they didn't predict what would happen to our finances, is that there was evidence of an existing problem and that the events causing our meltdown haven't occurred after the licencing process. The RFL assessment could have been fine but the problem has occurred later.

Our finances could have looked rosey back then (or no worse than anyone elses i.e. about a £200K loss) for all we know.

Blake Solly said on the radio a few weeks back that Bulls 'pacakge' (I can't remember what business-speak term he used) was in the top 3 when they looked at it 15 months ago.

Cheers, hadn't seen that. I guess that gives us a few options then. The RFL process is indeed rubbish. We made a good sales pitch and/or actively misled the RFL. Everything was genuinely fine 15 months ago and has then gone all Pete Tong.

If its the latter it makes me even more curious about just what it was the pushed us over the edge all of a sudden.

Agreed, it penalises the clubs involved in this process which atm is Bradford but

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/jul/26/wakefield-super-league-licence-crusaders[/url

The relevant bit in that article is this

Lewis refused to explain the decision when pressed about Wakefield's failure to meet the terms of their existing licence. "The rules for licensing are very much that they can be revoked in the future," he said.

So in July 2011 the RFL stated that licences could be revoked and yet over a year later they haven't a plan in place to deal with that exact situation. Blake Solly is the compliance manager so they have someone in place who's job it is but still no plan.

When I started out in business it wasn't unusual for many organisations to have five year business plans which were normally fairly accurate , but in the current climate such is the pace of change, and uncertainty of demand, it isn't easy to forecast even into the next quarter. So while you can see the way the franchise system works in three year blocks the RFL will be reviewing the projections for the following years of the next license period and however diligently the plan has been put together there must be massive uncertainty in the 2nd and 3rd years.
I suspect the Bulls application would also have included items like the community program, youth developement etc - non-financial elements but which would have strengthened the overall bid in the eyes of the RFL.
What I don't know is what if any stress testing the RFL would have done on the plans eg what if you have a bad year on the pitch in year 1 and loose 30% of your fans, or cut your ticket prices in half in the hope that you double the attendences?

I think that's unfair, while it would have helped us if the RFL had acted quicker, I wouldn't think you could have a plan that would anywhere near cover what to do in such necessarily bespoke circumstances. Plus, surely that exact situation (whether or not to revoke a licence) is exactly what they are dealing with, and I suppose the nearest you could have to a plan is to look at what happened, look at the proposals and look at the new owner, and decide whether to continue or to revoke. Ideally it could have been done quicker, and the delay (plus the huge logistical problems no doubt caused by the "liquidation at midnight" ultimatum pressure and having to do the deal at the drop of a proverbial hat "or else", have significantly cost us - and will cost us - much more (in many respects, but not least in being unable to plan, unable to sign or renew contracts, while in limbo); but I don't dispute that it had to be done.

As to the existing licence, how could the RFL could have known that our meltdown from a highly successful club into a crap, not-even-playoff-team would persist for years?

Looking at the proposals and the new owner has already been dealt with when OK Bull's had to submit business plans, proof of funding and pass a fit and proper persons test to be ratified for RFL membership. All that's a clear path, prior to any decision on what division we play in, and appears to have been done in reasonable time scale once the OK Bulls deal was done.
What's missing is the process to decide what division and that could have been in place especially since the RFL were publicly talking about revoking licences in 2011 and they have known a decision would have to be made since June. It's not a linear process to complete 1 thing (RFL membership) before starting on the next.

<conspiracythoeryalert>Perhaps they're hoping Featherstone, Halifax and other potential candidates start selling season tickets for the Championship thus making it a non decision</conspiracythoeryalert>