I suppose before youll accept any of this you want Sport England to actually name Bradford Bulls, Omar Khan and put the exact dates of Administrations in the rules as well.

No, just some kind, any kind, of requirement similar to what you said.

There isn't one there because it isn't necessary. Nobody has a problem with the RFL doing everything possible to minimise administrations and deter clubs from them. What you are proposing achieves neither of those things.

I'm not privy to the details of this case, but suspect the RFL will find a way to impose a 4 point rather than 6 point penalty on Bradford Bulls for going into Administration again recently.

I quite liked this thread during the off season, however, it’s getting a tad monotonous now, just endless accusations & retorts.

The sooner the Red Hall Massive decide on the outcome, the better & whatever is decided there’ll be squealing piggy’s either way.

Maybe the Bull’s won’t get a deduction at all (as per their original ill-advised statement) to the howls of derision from a number of fans, for whatever reason.

Maybe the Bull’s will get six points, followed by the accusations of injustice from Bradford fans (with the assistance of a number of sympathisers)

So come on Nigel, earn your corn & come to a decision, because I’m getting tired, so very tired.

Apparently he's waiting for Sally Bolton to get back to him with HIS decision

This. It was fun way to pass the off season (with a smattering of real and important issues that needed to be raised) but now there's real live rugby again, what's all the todo about?! Let's get on with it!

It may be tiresome (Bulls fans would use a whole load of more earthy adjectives) but given there is, apparently almost another fortnight before the winner of the auction is announced; and given that the combined wisdom of the world concludes that the points deduction must correlate to the loss to creditors; and given that that will obviously not be known until some considerable time after the new management is confirmed; given those circumstances it would clearly be both impossible and illogical to make a decision before those things happen.

you'll get 4 points docked....the race you have this year is to catch 12th spot, because you'll get those 4 points back from us. You may have to rely on other "contenders" kicking lumps out of themselves to stay up......this Thursdays game is already a 4 pointer IMHO!

Obviously only Trinity and probably the RFL know the exact specifics, as you probaby well know. Why do you think any fans would know the excat percenatge. All any Trinity fan knows is what was told by the new owners and the RFL.

Glover went into a few more details about who he paid off at the time at a fans meeting, when he took over. Questions were asked and answered, sorry didn't take any notes mate.

I suppose they could decide how much they were going to deduct in those 7 days, if Glover got out his checkbook out and paid what % of the creditors it was that kept the RFL happy there and then.

Whatever it was Glover paid, no doubt if your new owners offered to pay a similar %, they'd get the same treatment, surely?

Maybe the Crusaders fans now what percentage they paid becuase it was their club that set the Precedent.

You keep deriding certain Wakey fans for feeling the way they do but I bet if the roles were reverse, you and many of you're own fans would probably be saying the same as them, it's the nature of the beast.

Just for the record the amount of Trinty fans that want your club to suffer is tiny.

There was no real sale, MC was already on the board but played hardly any role and then he took over the fun and games from Glover.

By the way you are right we bought all those players you mention after admin but it was the season after we went into admin.We went into admin before the 2011 season, those players were bought for the 2012 season.

Agree with you there.

Decision by the end of the week apparently. I'm going for 4 points.

Nah, you’d built it on a belief that the RFL think supporters are idiots...not sure your supporters trust have helped to dispel the RFL of that notion tbh.


Heh, haven’t spun or distorted anything, unlike [isome[/i(not you) Wakey fans. Seems you’ve now come round to the idea that points deduction may be reduced depending on % of creditors to be repaid and/ or other exceptional mitigating circumstances...Which, if their recent press releases are to be believed, is pretty much the view held by Nigel Wood and Blake Solly.
Whats it like to agree with the RFL bud...and is it even legal in wakey?

Thanks for reasoned post. Wish some others did likewise.

And yes, of course you realised that I do not expect any Trinity supporter on here to know what value and % of the creditors Glover actually settled. Personally, I suspect it was a relatively limited part of the total, probably mainly local and smaller creditors (and very well done, assuming he did that - given the losses to local creditors in the CVA a few years earlier) and will not have included anything to HMRC (and I'd blame him not one jot). I also guess that he saw a precedent set by Crusaders (in whose downfall and phoenix the RFL were clearly far far more heavily involved...) and realised that if he made some gesture towards the creditors then the RFL would have no choice but to afford Wakefield the same mitigation. And, if so, good on him.

But they are only my guesses. And that has been my point. The view expressed by a number of Wakefield posters on here can be summed up as: "six point penalty regardless; four points if you repay many/most/lots/whatever of your creditors, like we did. No other option". Saying this sets a precedent. But how can they know if it does? Without knowing the background and the RFL's reasoning, and without knowing whether their creditor settlement was token, material, or substantial, there is no way anyone can possibly conclude unequivocally that, beyond the six points starting point, a precedent has been set.

In support of this, the RFL has fully mitigated any penalty to Salford (and totally correctly, I would suggest?) because in their act of insolvency the new owner apparently undertook to settle all the creditors through the CVA. I am led to understand that another club recently has been in a similar situation and with a similar outcome. So that would appear to demonstrate that the points deduction is probably linked in some manner to the extent to which you settle with your creditors? Yet the same siren voices blank this out, and demand a minimum four points regardless. Whether you pay off a handful of creditors or all of them, therefore providing zero incentive for a new owner to "do the right thing".

This would all be academic if the new owners sought to wipe the slate clean and not settle any of the creditors. Six points, without a doubt, according to precedent. Even though I think punishing new owners for the sins of the old is crazy and counterproductive, precedent is there and would have to be followed. Get over it Bulls fans, and try and move on. Indeed, as an opposition fan I would probably be clamouring for something far more serious, and as Bulls supporter I would have a lot of difficulty living with what had happened again to creditors.

But the new owners have stated they intend to settle with creditors. We would not expect them to settle with Khan (although some people, who can't or won't get their heads round the substance of his loans, disagree). And they and the RFL have both made it pretty clear that the administration came about NOT because the club was bust per se, but because Khan went back on the RFL-brokered deal he had agreed.

Since Khan had been providing funding up to September, but not since, and since you could not expect the current board (who had already slashed the cost base) to fund a business they did not actually own, as far as I can see there was clearly no way out other than putting the company out of the hands of all of them and into administration. And transferring the business to Newco so it could be carried on and jobs saved and the new SL season not be wrecked by the sudden disappearance of one of the participants.

Now what all this is important is because it gives credence to the new owners' statement that they intend to settle with creditors. My understanding, FWIW, is that they will seek to settle with all the creditors, not just a token few or some local ones or whatever. Since the reason for the administration was not to avoid paying creditors because they could not, but to remove Khan from the equation (I suspect the RFL and most other clubs will be far from unhappy about that, tbh) and obtain some protection whilst they got the bsuiness on a stable footing going forward. That, at least, is my current best assessment of the position. Time will tell, and if this proves to be words rather than reality then you'll not find me arguing against a points deduction. Nor would any other Bulls fan I know, despite most of us still being so angry about the Sky monies confiscation that so hamstrings future owners for the unacceptable antics of the various baords and owners pre-June 2012.

So, to the crux of all this (and if you have made it this far, good on you). Given all the above, UNTIL we know more clearly just what of the creditors the new owners are intending to settle with, there is NO WAY anyone - me, you, anyone - can form an objective view as to what the penalty mitigation should be. And it has been really very disappointing to see various Trinity supporters being so black and white on this issue, when they have no idea themselves either what their OWN new owner settled, or what ours propose to settle.

Like me, I suspect most observers will recognise that their stance likely arises out of the elephant in the room - the desperation to seek any advantage to reduce the chance of relegation. Whatever they might actually say it arises from. Understandable, given the pressure-cooker situation the sudden re-introduction of relegation - and of two clubs - has brought about. I am sure you are right, in saying only a tiny number of Trinity supporters wish Bulls harm. None I know do - they are cioncerned about their own club, and it avoiding the drop.

So, let's recognise it for what it is? If they just said "desperate times call for desperate measures, and anything that damages a fellow relegation contender (for both our clubs have to be that) helps us" they we'd be clear, and everyone would (or should) understand. And we'd not be wasting so much time with fans seeking justification for taking the moral high ground.

Anyway, after Thursday I very much fear Wakfield supporters will be sleeping easier in their beds anyway.

Take the two!

I'm going for a surprise move and we've agreed to pay creditors more then they're owed and we gain 2 points

(cue RFL/Bulls conspiracy allegations, volume 37...)

But I thought the administration was forced by one of the creditors - the loan company?

Your, otherwise well argued post, implies that going into administration was an act of the OK Bulls management which does not appear to be the case unless there was some sort of collusion between the parties?

Haha how dare you suggest such things on at that club

It was indeed forced by the moneylending company, to whom that idiot Whitcu*t had given a debenture.

As far as I can tell, he knew he held all the cards, and expected to be paid as soon as the deal with OK to transfer the shares was signed. The fact that apparently interest was accruing at totally usurious rates on the loan - sort of like Wonga with attitude - was likely to guarantee it would be paid at the earliest opportunity, I guess?

Once that deal apparently collapsed by OK pulling out, the business will have immediately become insolvent in reality, it already being so technically. So of course there was no way any creditor could be paid. HMRC had already filed for a winding up hearing anyway (set for March), so it seems he exercised his right as a debenture holder to apply to the High Court to appoint an administrator. As closely as I can make it all out, anyway.

I very much suspect the board, and I would not be surprised if also the RFL who seem to have been kept fully abreast of everything going on according to Solly, fully concurred with this being the only way out of the impasse. Solly's reported comments very much suggest this to be so. Certainly, I can't for the life of me see what else was to be done. Remember that administration is also a rememdy for irreconcilable differences between shareholders etc. Had anyone had a better solution, I can only assume they would have contested the application to appoint, which we are not told anyone did? And I feel sure the RFL would have gone apeshìt, and rightly so, had this not been the case.

So, my best guess is that the RFL must have been fully aware of all the circumstances and background (I think the club was anyway in Special Measures?), and must have agreed that not contesting the inevitable application by the moneylender was the only practicable way forward? Of course, the generally supportive initial comments from the RFL gave some people cause to assume the Bulls were getting "favourable treatment". However, I am quite expecting to find all that happened was that they had been trying to broker an outcome, and when one party backed out they continued to support the most practicable outcome available in the circumstances. Well, hoping, at least!

In any case, given the extreme sensitivity of clubs going bust having failed to pay HMRC, I cannot conceive that the RFL would have been so overtly supportive had clear intent to settle the HMRC balance owing not been given. That would have surely placed the RFL at serious risk of contravening the rules for NGOs receiving public sector funding?

That, like all the rest, is only deduction on my part, based on what we know and have been told. I've been proved wrong before across the whole sorry Bulls tragic comedy of recent years, and looked a fool after the event, when further information eventually makes it out into the public domain. So don't shoot me too much if subsequent information proves my deductions to be awry. I can only call it how I see it right now. And I will be pretty upset with the present owners if it transpires that the settle with creditors statement proves disingenuous.

I follow your reasoning and that would appear to be a believable reading of the situation.

In response to the previous poster J.C. perhaps the word "collusion" was a little too strong, maybe "understanding" would have been better?

FWIW, having watched my club, Salford, almost fall over the precipice I hope that there is some equitable outcome to this for Bradford.

You almost get it but are missing a key point.

If you were running, and hoping to be confirmed as the new owner of, the club - but there was a dispute with the old owner which was actually in litigation - so technically you own nothing - and the debenture holder came in demanding full repayment. Let us say that IF you were the new owner, confirmed, you were able and willing to raise the money to repay the debenture. that will stop the administration.

But if you are NOT yet the confirmed owner - and might NEVER be - what are the chances that you would be inclined to put in the money to pay the debenture off?

I don't know if MM & Co. would have been able / willing to raise the money to repay this debt, had they been confirmed owners, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, maybe they could have reached a deal with the lender. One thing that is clear to me is once the admin card was played, if it was me, I would also have kept all my personal chips in my pocket. You can understand the debenture holder moving in with an administration if told "No, we aren't paying you...yet". They wouldn't care WHY they weren't being paid, they just want their money back. And you can well understand the present "interim" would-be-owners deciding it was far better to let that go through, and try to gain actual ownership, than take a huge punt on repaying one massive debt when their ownership of the club is up in the air. It's not collusion. It's common sense.

Sorry FA, but I think that rather misses the point of the responsibility of the administrator.

For the Newco that has been formed to obtain assets from OK Bulls (in administration) I thought it was down to the administrator to either :

a) see if Oldco can be run in the interim with a view to it becoming a viable entity once again, either in its own right or by a purchase
or
b) liquidate Oldco, and obtain as much recompense as possible view to paying off the creditors.

In this case Newco Bradford seems to have been formed almost out of thin air, the staff TUPE'd over, SuperLeague and the RFL agreeing that Newco Bradford can stay in the competition fulfilling the promises that Oldco Bradford made - now perhaps I'm being completely naive but isn't the agreement with Superleague to be a part of the competition an asset with a value and if so, then has Newco Bradford paid the administrator for that asset?

Niether a nor b applies- it was a prepack so the administrator came ina and sold off the business almost immediately. If provisionally.

If the RFL did agree any such things then that must have been - by definition - provisional too -i.e unless within the 28 days (or whatever they say it is) someone comes in with a better offer than the prepack.

Adey will know far more than me but i've never heard of this "provisional" prepack business, and assume it is only happening on RFL instructions- and the RFL is in a position to be kingmaker since nothing ultimately happens without their agreement.

100% certainly the SL licence is not a saleable asset. A new owner has to apply to SL to be admitted to SL (or indeed the Championship) and that is that.

I nicked this off a legal website, and doctored it slightly:

[iThe administrator must initially perform his functions with a view to achieving the first purpose, which is to rescue the company as a going concern. Potential purchasers are usually unwilling to buy the shares of a company in administration as this would involve them taking on the liabilities of the insolvent company. Consequently, in practice, this first purpose is rarely achieved.

If it is not reasonably practicable to achieve the first purpose, an administrator may perform his functions with a view to achieving the second purpose. That is, to get a better result for the company’s creditors as a whole than would be likely were the company being wound up without there being an administration first. This purpose can often be achieved by the administrator selling the business as a going concern, where a higher purchase price is paid than if the assets were sold on a break-up basis, which often happens in a liquidation.

If the second purpose is not reasonably practicable, and only if the interests of the unsecured creditors as a whole will not be unfairly harmed as a result, the administrator may perform his functions with a view to selling the assets, in order to make a distribution to one or more secured or preferential creditors. Even if this is the only limb of the statutory purpose that can be achieved, the administrator must still act in the best interests of all of the creditors of the company.[/i

A SL Licence is not an asset with value, since it is awarded by the RFL and they have the full rights to determine to whom, if anyone, it may be transferred, and on what conditions. We saw that pretty clearly 18 months ago. It is not transferrable by the licence holder.

It seems pretty clear that the possibility of the deal reached with OK not being consumated must have been contemplated a bit before it actually happened. Don't forget, the original deal collapsed before Christmas, and it was indicated that the RFL got involved to broker a revised deal. Newco was incorporated in November, we were told to be the vehicle for new marketing opportunities (at least one of which I know about), so they already had a...convenient vehicle.

A prepack does not appear overnight, and it cannot be unreasonable to assume that it was being worked on as at least a fallback, if a final deal over ownership could not be reached? Or that the RFL must have been consulted in that process? Indeed, you would HAVE to have done so, for the administrator to be satisfied that he could accept the prepack in accordance with his responsibilities above?

As it has since transpired in what has seeped out, seemingly the RFL only sanctioned a 28-day licence for Newco, and the administrator only accepted the prepack on the basis that no better offer (see his purposes above) was received. Both of which sound like responsible and reasonably objective actions by the respective parties? One presumes the administrator must have struck a deal for the present incumbents to manage the business in the meantime, and presumably be recompensed for costs should they not ultimately inherit the club? So anyone arguing this was a colluded stitch up would look to be pretty wide of the mark? I would hate to be the current board and provisional owners, working my nuts off with all the responsibilities, yet knowing that the club could be taken from them before the end of the month.