You don't know why i sighed?

Sigh

Indeed. I was indicating what would be needed to make the process a fair one, not suggesting that it was practical.


I agree with this and your subsequent posts. At the moment I have no problem with the efforts being made to rescue the Bulls, but simply handing a newco a licence without them having to go through the full application process would be a rather large step too far - regardless of any threat of a financial penalty being imposed.

I guessed that you're deeply cynical about how fair the normal application process is in any case, but I thought I'd give you the opportunity to expand on your point.

I won't take up your kind offer to expand. There's enough BS shovelled by the RFL without me adding to it.

From the interview on BnA last night with Gerry Sutcliffe, I got the impression that they were willing to take on (and presumably hope to reach a deal on) the debts. Eddie seemed to almost take it as a given. Fair play in that case and it IMO solves the problems as well as was realistically possible.

I still think some of the shortcomings of licensing have been exposed and it should be looked at - but we hopefully don't have to rush into anything new now.

To the tune of 10p in the £ probably. Lets all do it......bring the game of rugby league into disrepute that is.

Taken from the Bulls board, a letter from the administrator contains the following:

The Joint Administrators anticipate realisations from the disposal of the Company’s assets will be insufficient for a distribution to be made to the unsecured creditors...

If true, that sounds (to little ol' untrained me) like the bid is for the assets of the Bulls rather than the Bulls (if you see what I mean) and those'll be used to start over with (unsecured) creditors getting nowt. Hmmm.

Newco then? Otherwise debts would still need paying surely

There are mechanisms for an oldco to avoid paying all it's debts, but they all (I think) require agreement from the creditors. Seems unlikely in the extreme that HMRC would be happy with that.

BTW, there are plenty of precedents for clubs using a CVA or similar to avoid paying creditors the full whack. The Bulls would hardly be breaking new ground.

Absolutely true. And I'm not taking a holier than thou line. If Bradford could reach agreement with 75% of their creditors, then that'd do for me. They and the system could carry on with a meaningless black mark against their name for the next round of licensing.
But not starting from scratch [iwithin the framework of licensing[/i - I know there have been spectacular fudges in the past, but not while simultaneously try to maintain a pretence of regulation and good governance.
As with referees, we can have (or at least aspire to) 'common sense' [uor[/u 'consistency'. There's a decent common sense argument for another fudge, but then we have to face up to the licence criteria being, like the pirates' code, 'more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules' and them being treated with a similar level of respect.

edit: I know you weren't responding to me, btw. I'm just concerned about them making a mess of this... well, in fairness, mess.

Most creditors would reluctantly take a % in the £ rather than get nothing (if oldco was going to be liquidated) and tbf, apart from the players, they wont have too many valuable assets.
The franchise system is in tatters with what has come to light over recent months. Even if there is still the semblence of an arguement that the 14 strongest clubs received a license last time around, the whole process has been shown to be not fit for purpose, so what should we have in future ?

Normal P&R wasn't working either tbf and licensing in some ways looked (on paper) a reasonable compromise - not closing the door on ambitious championship clubs, while also offering more stability - in theory. But it's ended up as the worst of both worlds - we don't have a control experiment, but clubs are still falling over too often and those outside SL have neither faith in the system or much hope that they might replace an incumbent. Understandably IMO.

The other options that I can see are:
1. A return to one up one down each year, while narrowing the financial gap between the top flight and the second tier so relegation isn't a life-threatening catastrophe and promotion looks a bit less like a poisoned chalice. The SL2 model that is proposed from time to time would be one version. Unlikely - in the absence of new money (that elusive panacea), it'd be a redistributive solution - pigs'll fly first.
2. A three year P&R cycle. Points accumulated over 3 seasons determine who goes up and down. Fewer complaints about meaningless games, or '1 bad year' ruining a club. Not so many unpleasant choices for the governing body to make - they thought they were taking on powers, when actually all they got were responsibilities. That'd be my preference.
3. An NRL model, openly and honestly admitting that the door to the top flight is closed and clubs should make arrangements accordingly - some/most championship clubs likely to become barely-autonomous reserve grade teams.

One of the reasons PR stopped working was because all but the chosen 12 had funds taken away. What's up with a sliding scale based on performance on the pitch.

If it's pronounced it tends to lock in success (and by extension failure) in a self-reinforcing cycle.

It's no coincidence, for example, that the EPL developed a big 4 (Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal for some years, Man City taking Liverpool's place now I guess) and also had 4 richly rewarded spots in the Euro Big Cup.
The Premier League [uas a sporting competition[/u is cack for about four-fifths of its participants.

Now SL has also had a big 4, I admit, even without the distorting effect of something like the Big Cup. But all the more reason, IMO.

The reward for performance on the pitch is wins and ideally trophies. A bit of prize money for the players aside, any financial benefits should come from increased fan interest.

Which funds were removed?

I'm sure I saw something about them removing the parachute payment to relegated clubs. But I could be wrong

That was the only thing I could think of. And it was removed after lobbying by the Championship clubs themselves...

Monies used to be shared out on a sliding scale based on position from top of top league to bottom of bottom league. Now SL clubs get over a million each champ clubs 90k each. Er why is there a big gap doh. Next year champ monies are reduced again. And they say they care about the championships.

The SKY money was never, ever, shared on any kind of sliding scale and the Championship clubs never got any of it anyway. Are you saying that the RFL give each SL club £1m of [itheir own money[/i every year?

Before SKy. Never said sky money was. Before lindsay sold or soul and took our game away from the masses.

For better or worse, we've moved our elite competition to Sky Sports. To say that we have took it away from the masses, however, is a little hysterical. People with more than a passing interest in sport nowadays will have a subscription to Sky Sports. If they still choose not to watch RL, then that's down to their indifference, not the act of "selling our soul".

And before people start crying poverty, and saying they can't afford to watch the rugby anymore; if you really can't afford the fifty quid or so a month to watch what you claim is a sport you are passionate about, then watching rugby is probably the least of your problems.

or go the pub

Sounds like a plan. Mine's a pint!

You are wrong.

AFAIK the Championship clubs only received SKY money during one of the seasons when SKY broadcast their games. This was not a share of the SL cash.