Do you think that Bradford are to blame for their own downfall?
Do you think the club should somehow be penalised for this latest Administration and if so what do you think would be a fair punishment.

I don’t think Bradford are one homogenous blob of incompetence. Im sure there are many people at the Bulls who go in, day in, day out, work extremely hard and do a very good job under difficult circumstances.

I think those who are ultimately responsible, those who carry the can have gone. I dont think those at teh club now are responsible.

No. I dont see what it would achieve. Those who have ultimate responsibility have gone. Those who are there now werent responsible for it. I dont see what punishing those trying to clear up the mess achieves. It isnt a deterrent, it doesnt make things fair, it doesnt help the club get on its feet. Its a silly pointless token to those who demand penance

How do you square that with creditors who aren't paid by the club, how do you keep HMRC on side so that they continue to offer terms to other member clubs. What's to stop owners running a club into debt either intentianaly or through gross incompetence in the knowledge that they can just walk away and the club can carry on as if nothing happened.

Common sense says there has to be some sanction in place to stop the above from happening

Depends if you believe fair punishment is related to amount of debt, if you treat all creditors equally in every situation and the amount of debt paid back. If so, I don't see how there is enough information to make a judgement at this point in time.

In this case I don't view all creditors as equal since it appears the major creditor is the one who ran up the debts while mismanaging the club. The level of debt to Bradford Council and HMRC (2 other known creditors), along with any other trade creditors, and any agreements to repay them should affect the points deduction.

My opinion is that if the club gains a competitive advantage from not paying creditors then a points deduction is appropriate. IMO the level should depend on the total amount creditors lose and be unlimited but precedent has a 6 points deduction as standard if no creditors get paid. Of 2 other clubs who've gone through similar processes, Wakefield got 4 points for repaying some creditors (amount unknown) and Salford by repaying all creditors via a CVA got 0 points deducted.
If any deduction follows those guidelines then I'd consider that fair.

SmokeyTA thinks there should be no punishment if clubs go into Administration.



Ses is right.

Smokey, like King Canute ordering back the tide, is at odds with the whole game of RL. The clubs give the board of their governing body the right to impose penalties if clubs go into Administration.....

"4.7 In the event of a member ceasing to be a member upon notice from the Company by virtue of Acquisition, Change of Control or Insolvency Event, the Board, at its absolute discretion, shall have the right to readmit the member or admit a new member as a member on any terms as it sees fit, which for the avoidance of doubt, may include financial, administrative and/or sporting sanctions. "

SmokeyTA should ask if he can go to the next RFL Council meeting to let them all know they've got it wrong.

1 - For the 2012 downfall? The shareholders, who collectively or separately owned and/or managed the club, were totally to blame. No-one else.

2 - For the current downfall? Again, the shareholder who owned and managed the business has to be to blame. The financial penalty made his job much more difficult than it had any right to be, but he took the club on in the full knowledge of that. To his credit, and ultimate loss. Had he not have done so, there would be no club.

You cannot blame "the club" as an entity. People screw up. People are to blame. Not an impersonal entity. The people who owned and ran the club are to blame. If the same people were there before and after, then you could use the terms "the club" and "the owners" interchangeably. But they were not. So you can't. Any more than you can blame "the company" when a company goes bust. The blame lies with those who were running it.



I share Smokey's view about how punishing new owners is counterproductive, punishes those least at fault the most and likely deters just the sort of people the game needs, and smacks more of revenge rather than prevention.

However, whilst there are a lot of rules and laws in life that I disagree with, they are there and so we have to comply with them until or unless we can get them changed. As it must be with any applicable rules here.

This six-point penalty business is now not set out in the rules. Nor is any basis for mitigation. All the rules currently say (in essence) is that it is an offence under the by-laws to commit an act of insolvency (including a CVA, like Salfords) and that clubs must make sure HMRC are kept paid up to date (and some less-specific comments about financial management generally). And make it pretty clear that any penalty is down to the RFL.

As I have said elsewhere, that is a fudge and nonsense. The framework for penalty should be clearly established and fully transparent. That includes any mitigation or aggravation factors. Bit like sentencing guidelines for judges. It is the absence of this - and the assumption by so many of you guys that treatment will be inconsistent (even though you have no idea yet wht that treatment will be, or why) that is causing so much of the current agnst.

In the absence of that, we have to go on the basis of precedent.

Precedent - and previous defined rules - stated six points for committing an act of insolvency (not just administration). Concur.

Precedent provides for mitigation of the penalty for an act of insolvency depending on settling some or all of the creditors. 2 point mitigation for Wakefiled and Crusaders (some creditors settled in both cases. For Wakefield, anecdotal evidence but no firm evidence that it was probably not a big proportion by value, but was a significant and important gesture). 6 point mitigation for Salford, since apparently all creditors paid.

In the absence of any new rules, precisely the same precedent should be followed for Bradford. 6 point penalty. Period.
Mitigated by the extent to which the creditors are repaid by the new owners.

No repayment - full 6 points penalty - and bloody lucky to get away with that. If no creditors at all were repaid, I would have a big issue with the new owners same as I did with the shareholders (it was not Hood & co, btw) who put the previous entity into administration.

Full repayment (and NOT to OK - if he had put his money in as shares not loans, he would not be a creditor) - penalty fully mitigated.

Partial repayment - partial mitigation, maybe by two points as happened to Wakefield and Crusaders, maybe less or more, depending on the % creditor repayment.

Ses hasnt been right once ITT...just t'other day he was insisting there was an an automatic sanction for Insolvency Events


Congratulations on proving him wrong and AdeyBull [iet al [/iright. Again

2014 was part of the super league licence period......Bradford were forced by a majority of other SL clubs to give up half their central funding to remain a SL club..

Now part of the licence criteria is to have a capacity in excess off 10,000.
does this mean that Wakefield and London are no longer deemed suitable for superleague as they cannot at this moment accommodate 10,000 fans, If the criteria no longer applies as we are now having P & R then that should also apply to Bradford and they should receive their full central funding.

what do you think guys...if Bradford are still being unfairly penalised then any other club who is failing to meet the minimum standards should also be penalised as well.

btw...MY best-attempt solution to this nonsense going forward - as I have already said on here before:

Anyone buying or owning an RL club, that is to be a member of the Rugby Football League, has to lodge a bond with, and in favour of the RFL. That bond to be equal to, say, 200% of the expected or recent historic maximum third party creditors in a financial year. Or 100% plus 100% of all potential employee liabilities. Or similar.

That bond to be drawn upon in the event of insolvency, or protracted failure to pay creditors on time (HMRC, salaries) or within a reasonable period (otherwise).

A wealthy club owner can put up his own assets as security - effectively providing a secured personal guarantee for the bond. Will be no issues at all for them, since they are likely bankrolling their club anyway.

Non-wealthy club owners will need to try and buy a performance bond or similar, as is common with e.g. construction etc contracts.

To avoid discouraging non-wealthy but capable and genuine owners (like, say, a supporters trust, or capable small businessmen) who can neither pledge their own assets, or obtain an insured bond at a sensible price, the RFL run a scheme which subsidises isured bonds, partially paid for by the RFL and for which the owners (a) pay a monthly fee and (b) agree to submit to a much higher level of ongoing financial supervision, including where necessary an RFL-appointed non-executive financial-type director, all costs to be borne by the club.

The level of bond required to be reduced and removed as soon as a club's net assets exceed a certain threshold. So the likes of leeds, for example, would be free from any obligation.

Loads of detail to be finessed there, but surely some structure like that would enable anyone who was capable and competant to be able to consider running a RL club? WIthout fear of having to pay for past owners' mistakes or for losing their own livelihoods in the event of genuine failure?

very easily, the creditors issue is with the previous owners not the new ones. You are punishing the new ones, not the old ones,

What's stopping owners running up huge debts then putting the club into admin is that they will lose all the money they put in. That's the deterrent, taking points off a club they no longer own isn't a deterrent. Do you think Omar Kahn is sat there saying 'well, I'm cool with the hundreds of thousands of pounds I lost but god forbid they take points off a club i dont own'?

No sanction you levy on Bradford now could have any effect on how Omar Kahn ran the business. Just as no sanction you could levy on Andrew Glover would have affected how Ted Richardson ran Wakefield

The only people left after calamities like this are the fans. Fans should be punished. First, relegate their club and then flog each fan with the cat 'o nine tails. Where's the problem?

Some of the wierder ones might actually enjoy it.

Are you f**k!! Lol. What a cock.

You may have a point

I know the threads moved on a bit, but if my memory serves didn't Rodney walker loan a large sum (£160,000?) to the old wakey regime? I believe he was one of the creditors who was paid back first and in full.
I can't remember where or when I've got this from, I just seem to have a memory of it so perhaps someone could confirm or otherwise please (please don't attack me for posting this; I accept I could be totally wrong!)

You know what the biggest problem in these guys just not "getting it" is? Over and above those who just want to see Bradford screwed to improve their own club's chances of avoiding the drop? They can't get their heads around the distinction between an entity - be it company or club - that is incapable of any thought or action by itself - and those who own and/or direct it.

Maybe they would go out and give a car a damn good thrashing, because a previous owner ran up an HP debt on it and did not pay the garage for servicing it. That will REALLY teach that nasty car a lesson, won't it? And it will REALLY encourage its new owner not to do it again, won't it? Except, he never actually did it in the first place; a previous owner did.

Indeed, giving the car a well-deserved thrashing is, if anything, only likely to impoverish the new owner, and make it much more likely he will end up doing the same as the previous one.

(c) Adeybull's Car Analogies - available on Amazon and from all good bookstores.

We shouldn't put club names on trophies - just those that were directors of the clubs at the time the trophy was lifted. Maurice Lyndsay would be all over the Challenge Cup.

Well that would make me feel a whole lot better at Leeds losing all those cup finals. I reckon losing would be the better option to be honest.

:1ri1u4ue

Not a pretty sight...