But it will obviously depend on what the bulls can afford within the cap, burgess by that time maybe the best player in the world, you can hardley offer him a token 100 grand, if say wire or Leeds or Cumbria all stars offer him the most money Bradford will have to match it to trigger the clause I would think. Or if burgess goes to another club and then back go England the clause would be defunct

The way in which we complete our squad for next season will be the biggest direction yet as to how ambitious our club really is.

We now must have room in our CAP for 3-4 High Quality players, proven SL/NRL level at the right age. Add to this promotion of 2/3 from the academy and our squad could look a hell of alot stronger.

Surely nows the time to throw some money around for the right player(s).

I hope it states "Super League" rather the "England" in his contract.

not a cat in hells chance

it would cost you big style and you haven't enough brass

I tend to agree with that, but I suspect the announcement has ben delayed at our request to allow us to get some signings in place. How good they are remains to be seen.

About £20k probably.

Well, they would, but then even if he was still our player, we'd have to do pretty much exactly the same to sign him on for a further period.




Er, no.

I just hope that his contract is as water tight as the one we had in regards to Iestyn's promised return to the Rhinos from RU

Any loop holes in that contract, and more unscrupulous SL chairmen out there could be doing a deal behind the Bulls backs for Sam

I'm now lead to believe that the board had agreed the deal at some point last week and waited for Macca to return from holiday so he could have his say on the matter.

Whatever the club does over the next few weeks will give us some indication on whether we will compete again in the next few years.

OK we're concentrating on our youth set-up - but isn't everyone? It's way too early to tell if Donaldson, Whitehead and the rest will become top players ala Peacock and Fielden were for us in the early noughties. At least we're giving them a chance and if we do produce another star - well great for us.

The board also need to announce some real quality signings. If it wasn't bad enough that we missed out on the play-offs and were consistently inconsistent last year we've now sold our main homegrown star. I'd hope that the board and Macca do have signings lined up, hey, we've made enough space for them and Semi could be yet added to the departure lounge. The "fair weather" fans will want to see a few names coming in. The die-hards such as us will be attending whoever we put out to play.

There's bound to be a lot of finger pointing over the coming days and tough questions asked by the press to The Hood over our financial state and our ambitions over the next few years. Let's see what he has to say - he'll want to deflect some of the flack with news on new signings.

Sod it - Burgess has gone / is going - all the best to him. The last thing the club need now from us - the fans - is to just rant and rave at them at every opportunity and to avoid buying season tickets.

It'll all be in hand on the signings front I'm sure. OK the odd one or two might need a few t's crossing etc and the odd signing might not be to everyone's liking but we are where we are.

Unless someone on here has a shed load of cash to give the club - which I'm sure we don't have, we'll just have to grin and bear it until our cycle comes around again. Just think - it could all be about to happen to Saints too over the next year or so. Graham to the NRL next? Wouldn't bet against it, especially if Sam does well. Worse stadium than us, Cunningham to retire in a year - ever decreasing squad, remind you of anyone?

Personally I can't see us winning anything next year as we stand but our outlook may change once we get some numbers in and get an idea on what the squad will look like.

It's not the end of the world - the club has seen and experienced a lot worse and probably will do again in the future.

It's times like these that will make any future final / trophy win all the sweeter. Don't give up!!!!!

We're still here, and we all start on 0 points come Feb 2010.

Trouble is if the squad isn't strengthened with quality as opposed to quantity we'll still be on "0" points 6 games into the season. The club has known for a long time more or less who was going and who was staying and should have been working in the background for months on reshaping the squad based on this seasons failings. I hope they have and make some quality signings. Unfortunatly I don't have the confidence with the coaching staff to believe we will attract the right people. We are no longer an attractive prospect and won't be competing for honours for a while. After this there should be some announcments from the club, I suppose wait and see is all we can do.

He's gone

[urlhttp://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12196_5593570,00.html[/url

It was actually several "interlocking" contracts which, taken together, meant that - in the Decision of Mr Justice Gray - the restraint of trade in the agreements was actually enforceable. To the surprise of many in the legal profession at the time, although what I have seen suggests to me that Judge Gray reached a fair conclusion.

But yes, in the generality, you are quite right. At least our present chairman is not a lawyer.

[i(FA please improve on anything I got wrong there?)[/i

As im sure this has been agreed for a number of weeks if not months, im hoping good replacements are lined up because if we are now entering the market we may have a tough job finding free agents for next season.

Then obviously it has to be a contract between burgess and the club nothing to do with souths! In that case if burgess comes back and says I don't Want to play for ya, Bradford are gonna make him or make him sit on the side line?

Leaves with my best wishes. His ambitions are obviously set higher than Mr Hood's. I don't blame him for wanting to test himself in the best competition in the world.

Good luck mate, do us proud.
Hope to see you in the red amber and black again one day!

Good Luck to Sam. Hope he makes a real success of it down under.

Bradford were never going to turn down a transfer fee. May help balance the books after a less than succesful season, and poor crowds.

I hope we are all going to blame Sam now for running after the money.

Judas. Maybe we can sign someone now who wants to play for us.

The club are not at fault here are they? How can they be?

Oh dear looks like they were lying. You must sponge everything up they write.

Contract between Burgess and the Club. In consideration of early release, Sam agrees to enter into new playing contract with Bulls, should they so elect, provided on same or better terms than anything he is offered elsewhere.

If Sam elects not to come to Bulls but instead go to another club, and provided the club has observed its side of the contract, then club sues Burgess for damages. Most likely the transfer fee they could have obtained had he re-signed then been transferred. And club sues the other club if they can be shown to have induced the breach and with intent.

Provided of course the contract is shown to be enforceable and not void through restraint of trade or other reason.

I suspect a contract that placed this obligation on him for only a few years, and that required him to enter into a two-year contract (i.e. the unexpired proportion of his full previous contract) could be enforceable - a bit of an unofficial legal precedent having already been set!

I suspect a contract more onerous would likely be voidable for undue restraint of trade.

[iFA? Right lines here?[/i

So you don't mind him breaking his contract? Showing the club no loyalty?

...And would you when a bigger wedge was on offer and an opportunity to follow your dream?

The club has shown no loyalty to him by showing no ambition. He has left now, and the club will benefit from it rather than him leaving for nothing next year. So no, I don't mind.

How exactly do you work that out?

Well into the valley we go that's the last big star to leave and we are now down to the bare bones. Some dead wood and some class has left this year but I've been generally supportive of the club on those decisions. Only time will tell now whether we are now a club destined to scrap around the bottom of the table scraping together a squad or whether the club are able to use this as an opportunity to build a new squad for the future able to compete for years to come.

Personally I like to think we are on the verge of a very exciting time at Bradford but we'll have to wait and see.

Best wishes to Burgess but I've just my next door neighbour to back over my Tape copy of Gladiator with his nissan sunny. It was a rubbish pirate copy anyway half way through one of the fight scenes someone in front gets up to go to the toilet.

Obviously we'll never know as the settlement with leeds for Harris was undiclosed as is the compensation for Burgess but I wonder if it would have been more financially beneficial for the club to just let him go last year?

Then again the ramifications of such action may have been much worse.

Sam is just doing what 99.9% of the population would do when offered a chance to develop their career.

I don't see why anyone should really have a problem with him, he's not shirked his performances or refused to play for us to force a move, and we have received a fee, and he may even come back.

I'm yet to see much evidence that keeping someone who would rather be elsewhere works out best for the player involved, or the club - so what would the benefit of him staying have been? If this had all happened and he hadn't gone in the end he would probably have ended up a target for some supporters next season if and when things don't go so well, along the lines of "he wanted to leave, he isn't really trying etc etc".