Haha, yeah no probs, it comes in handy every now and again. Don't normally bite but he's literally copy-pasted his bs comment on every thread even remotely linked to the game!

Indeed! I'l refer to the troll as the "Bruce Enema" henceforth, I think!





Tell you what, mate? Most of the rest of the competition has at least one of us down for the drop. Don't know about you, but I could quite easily live with us BOTH proving the buggers wrong?

Agreed, no problem with Bradford at all, lets hope for a Leeds/Cas bottom 2

The last policy review was in September (which is the one I'm quoting above) - there's a lot of stuff this year (I was looking for mentions of the new talent pool when I came across the quote.)

I'll go through the technicals of it in the morning, as it's far too late in the day for such things though!

One thing I will say though is (unfortunately) there is no leg for you to stand on with regards the club shouldn't be punished for previous owners mistakes. Part of the rfl club charter requires clubs to take full responsibility for the actions of their directors, officials, players, coaches, fans etc. In the rfls eyes, chairmen and directors are entities of the club, rather than the clubs being entities of chairmen and directors business portfolio. An important distinction. I cannot for the life of me find the precise line I'm looking for with regards to this, but from the google blurb:



(The problems of not having Ctrl+f on an iPad!)

The closest comparison would be EDIT (cos I thought of a better example) - if you owned a house, and brought in some workmen to do some work, who turned out to be rogue, you'd still be responsible for paying for the work to fix the bad work done (of course you can chase the rogue workers for comp (which is what Bradford are doing if I'm up to date with events!) but otherwise, responsible for the bill)

Now that the new owners are sorted out I'll bet Omar is looking forward to getting his loan back.

This is simply wrong. "The club" in its previous incarnation was defined as OK Bulls Ltd. Which is not to say that personal individual responsibility wasn't also imposed (it was) but I am baffled as to why people believe that the RFL, or anyone, can somehow go outside the terms of the numerous actual documents that exist. They can't.

Also the word "punished" does not appear in the RFL documentation.

What was done to the old club, and what will have to be done about the new club, is that the RFL will have to propose on what terms they can play in SL, including whether they are required to forfeit any distribution. And then the new owners will be able to either agree, or refuse. It can be proposed on a "take it or leave it" basis (and was on the last Bulls, at the last minute) but it cannot be imposed. Can only be done by agreement.

Unfortunately FA, you are wrong. As I explained on page 71. It is the Bradford Bulls CLUB that got the 2 year half Sky money penalty and will get the points deduction when the RFL decide upon it this week. However much you might not like it, you will, in due course, see I am right.

As you say, any prospective new owners in discussions with the RFL will know all this - and will then make up their mind whether they want to buy the Club on that basis.

Hang on, we were told that it wasnt a penalty at all. It was an offer from Omar Kahn.

If it was an offer from Omar Kahn as so many have desperately insisted, then the new bulls cannot be held liable for Omar Kahns offer, if the RFL/SL clubs want the money Omar Kahn offered and Omar Kahn agreed to then they can join the list of creditors of Omar Kahns company.

WS, I hope you are a lawyer like FA is? Cos I fear you will need to be prepared for a long debate with him!

Substance vs legal form again, of course.

Legal form: FA is correct (else he would not have posted it). There is no enduring legal entity "The Club", so any sanctions or penalties imposed on, or agreements entered into with, the previous legal entity that owned "The Club" die with the demise of that entity. A new owning entity cannot automatically be bound by any of those things, any more than if a person dies their heirs are not bound by punishments etc meted out on him.

Substance: notwithstanding the above, if the RFL determines that the new owner SHALL submit to the unexpired punishment of the old, and/or SHALL be punished for the sins of the old, then the new owner has the choice of accepting those conditions, with or without a fight; or walking away from owning "The Club" or closing it down.

So, whilst the RFL cannot force the new owners to inherit the punishment for the actions of previous owners, it CAN say that unless they DO, they won't be allowed back. The new owners then have a straight choice. And so does the RFL, if they walk away.

The [iRealpolitik[/i of course is that substance will again win out.

Whilst, I don't particularly want to disagree, my understanding is the rfl don't see a new club and an old club, rather THE club being controlled from an old business/ new business - is suppose the closest thing to actual business workings would be something like the Bradford rugby league trademark - but I'm not entirely sure. How else would the rfl have powers for things like "fit and proper" tests? Usually anyone with the money can come along, name the right price and buy a company!

But anyway, the rules clearly state the club takes responsibility for the actions of its directors - so if the directors mess up, it's the club that should endure any sanctions put in place. Harsh? Yes, but it's always been there.

Your right there is no "punished" but there is a lot of "sanctions" "misconduct" and the like - I used sloppy language as I posted late at night!

The RFL only have the points deduction, a maximum of 6 points as a threat.

If I were the Bulls new owners, I wouldn’t accept it and if the RFL want to play hardball tell them to bring it.

You don’t pay me whats contracted, I don’t do what is contracted. You refuse to pay me what is owed you are in breach of contract and I don’t provide a side for the next game. If it ends with me having to shut down, so be it. YOU deal with a 27 game season where two games have been played then a team drops out, you deal with 30+ players who are out of a job will be looking to take that up with their governing body who with-held money from a club they had no right to, you deal with whoever gets relegated’s inevitable legal action on the basis that the competition did not follow the format decided when I shelled out nearly £3m on a squad and costs.

There IS no Club, in law, though. See above.

But you (quite reasonably) draw the distinction between legal form and substance.



No, you just (rightly) reflected substance over legal form again.

Legal form: ""sanctions" "misconduct" and the like"

Substance: "punished"

They have the power to restrict the transfer of the Super League Golden Share which entitles a club to membership of SL and all associated with it.

The RFL undermine there own argument there because if they were to see it as a single club continuing, why are they needing to transfer and authorise the transfer of the Golden Share, and how come they have only given Bradford a temporary licence, and had to judge them for a new, shorter licence when the club had already been granted a 3 year licence.

I didn't know about golden share, I'm going to have to go do some reading!

I'm not too sure about the transferring, but the licensing is a separate issue to the golden share (by reading the face of it) - golden share gives the club the right to be part of the rfl and those that sanction the sport, the super league licence gives the club the right to compete in the elite competition - being able to hold one doesn't automatically imply the other which is why it would need to be reissued (assuming "the club" holds the golden share and "the business" holds the licence which is as was claimed earlier - and yes, I'm not sure what grounds the rfl hold "the club" in I can merely say how the rules interpret!)

Indeed it was the "Club", that entity specifically being OKBL. And no other company.


.you cannot conflate the two things. They are completely distinct. One is a written agreement between the old club and the RFL etc. The other is (or will be) a decision taken by the RFL in relation to the new club and its participation in whichever competition it plays in. And even you should be able to see that deducting posthumous points from [ilast [/iyear's Bulls would be, er, rather futile.


Come again? Why would I have any issue with you, or anyone, being right?

How strange.

But on the distribution agreement you simply don't know what you are talking about, so do yourself a favour and give it up.

I find it hard to believe that someone is proposing that Bradford say they should ignore any penalty imposed.

How would they do that?

If a six point penalty is imposed then it's imposed. The club are not in charge of their own points allocated during the season. If they were every club would be and the whole sporting concept would be a non-sense as people would just award themselves points as and when they felt like it.

I also don't buy the punish the old club not the new club arguement.

If it was truely a new club, it would have no home, no players, no points transfered from the old club, no season tickets from before administration, no staff, no history.

It's not a new club, it's a purchase of an already exsisting business. Stating that any sporting penalties should die with the last regime would bring chaos to the sport. You would have clubs setting up, racking up debts and folding to reform the next day debt free with no sporting penalties and no consequences for the disaster they leave behind. In the long run credit would dry up for the sport of RL and it would become a basket case. The players would leave in droves as would the fans.

When you advocate the Bull's playing hard ball with the RFL, you also advocate the Bulls playing hardball with everyone in the sport. Any remaining good will would be lost and those defending the throwing out of Bradford would change tact.

How would SL cope with Bradford self terminating, well it would just mean one less team to relegate come the end of the season and a wider share of current SKY monies. The couple of 100 fans they bring would be inconsequential to most clubs.

But the biggest impact would be on the RL public in Bradford who would see their (people's) club prefer to self terminate than play by the rules.

It's the short termist and in the end self defeating.

I think some people are unnecessarily complicating many of these issues.

The central point in this context is, whilst to the Bradford fans, it will ALWAYS be the same club, and whilst there is an obvious continuity in players, staff, venue, fans etc., the simple fact is that from the RFL's perspective, as well as legally, it is a whole new entity.

1. The new company which is the new club
2. The owners who need to pass the fit and proper test

It is then simply up to the RFL whether it will accept the new club to play either in SL, or some other comp, and if so, on what terms.

And it's up to the new owners, of the new business, to agree,or renegotiate, or decline.

Obviously there are complexities, for one thing due to the number of parties involved (SLE etc) but those don't detract from what is a pretty simple basic concept.

And whilst "the Club" may well be a shorthand term of convenience, in any formal document that term will be defined, and that definition will define "the club" as meaning the company that is the legal entity behind it. And it has to, as in law there is in fact no such legal entity as "the Club".

There's your big mistake, right there. If the new owners had simply bought an ongoing concern then everything would have come with it, including all debts. There'd be some formalities, but no issues at all.

That's not what happened. OKB was and remains a separate company and will end up being liquidated. BB2014 did not purchase the whole existing ongoing business, rather it just acquired the ASSETS from the administrator of OKB. It did not acquire OKB.

You are right, incidentally, that the new owners are in no position to "play hardball". Though that is not to say they have no negotiating position, of course they do, the Bulls provides some value for the comp, and the RFL can certainly use their £78k rent instalments from a living Bulls, to point to just two things.

I have no problem with any of that and I get the difference between legal form etc. But as you say the new club has to agree terms with the RFL.
Given that sport is not a business and that sport carries across a legacy putside of the financial, whether that be points, players etc. Then the sport has to have rules that govern both old and new clubs. Smokey was advocating hardball to the point of the club self terminating. Whilst I agree it's an option, it's not a very good one. As the self inflicted punishment would be so far beyond 6 points. It would be effectively all points.

There are plenty of sporting rules that clubs could challenge, the salary cap being the obvious one. But there are others such as 13 a side. If clubs start to break these rules and not accept the punishments, it tears down the sport itself. What if players started to ignore referee calls because it was all in the past and no current. Everything we do can be argued as something that is someone elses fault. In the end if there was no sporting punishment for administration, other clubs would resort to legal chanels regarding all aspects. For example if they should be relegated or not etc.

They couldnt ignore a points penalty (they could fight it it under certain circumstance) They could refuse to accept a financial penalty, and would have a very good defence to fight what was apparently not a penalty but an offer from a previous owner of a different company.


They also wouldnt have needed to buy the players., staff, lease etc out of administration.

It would f'ck up the season and the RFL completely. But then why should Bradfords new owners sacrifice half their TV income because the rest of the sport is playing hardball. You can't use a clubs share as a hostage to get money out of them, and then complain because they arent rolling over and having their bellies tickled When they have the chance to throw a little back.

I think there is some conflation of different things here, and maybe I wasn’t clear myself.

Sport isn’t a business. It is a sporting contest, it is governed by the laws governing that game the law of land does not have jurisdiction over it. If the RFL want to have 13 players a side, the law cannot intervene on that. If they want uncontested scrums, then the laws of the land don’t apply (simply because there aren’t any relevant)

Clubs are a business, and players are employees. They are subject to all the responsibilities and liabilities that entails.

The RFL can, as long as they don’t contravene their own rules, hand down the punishment they see fit. (they can’t really apply more than 6 points as that would contravene their own rules) They can’t start demanding a club pays money not set down in the rules, they cannot force a new business to pay a promise of the old company. The debt is with the old company not the new one. The RFL are contracted to pay X amount in TV money to the Bulls for making their games available to Sky and participating in the competition. If Omar Kahn agreed to give half of it back, then that sits with Omar Kahn not the new company.

If the RFL want to pass that on to the new company, then their only leverage is to not transfer the golden share and licence. If the RFL don’t do that then they have kicked the bulls out, there would likely be ramifications for the RFL from the Bulls and most likely Bulls players. Bradford don’t need to threaten to shut down, they just need to refuse to accept the frankly idiotic reduction in TV cash, and if the RFL refuse to accept the new owners because of that then the Bull shut down and leaving SL is the inevitable conclusion.

Go on, push it:



You know you want to.

Just a quick question to those who feel Bradford’s new owners shouldn’t receive a point’s deduction, what should happen?

After perusing eight hundred posts I haven’t seen the answer.

Are they of the opinion that, if a club goes bust the newco start with a clean slate, if so where is the deterrent of doing it time & time again?

Maybe the point’s deduction should be retrospective, which would be entirely pointless, except they may receive less cash for a lower finishing position.

The final irony is no one appears to know what the points deduction scale is any more, a maximum of six or is it twelve, maybe agreed in secret, a bit like the original loan that started this whole fiasco.

Wigan only got 30k for winning the thing apparently so god knows how little teams who finished outside of the playoffs got! Maybe paying 1.3m was the final position prize pot!

I solved that mystery

6 points which the new Bradford board can appeal based on how much they convince the rfl that they're good guys really - from 2015 it will be 12 with no buts ifs or maybes (a good move imo)

I think its been said n times that penalties on new owners who take over after its car crash can in no way serve as any deterrent to stop THEM doing the same. Since it is not THEM who will suffer any penalties for their actions, but the NEXT idiots who take over.

Equally, it cannot be fair on the rest of the competition if Newco starts with a clean slate, if that confers any advantage over the others.

But, any sanctions on Newco to ensure it does NOT, must at the same time not put it at significant disadvantge either, since why then would anyone take over after the car crash?

The penalties should be on those who casued the car crash in the first place. And those penalties used to repay the creditors. And the new owners then acquire the assets at fair market value.

But, that will not address the situation if Oldco had ALREADY obtained advantage by not paying its creditors. People quote the example of having a team you cannot afford. In practice, that can only ever be the case for maybe a the few months leading up to insolvency, since if you CAN pay your creditors and with some margin, you are solvent and seemingly living within your means. And once you start NOT being able to pay your cfeditors, it is not long before the car crash anyway. The grey area will always be in the timing, since a business could enter into commitments assuming x future income, and when that future income fails to materialise then the slow descent begins. Something that happened to both previous Bradford administrations.

So far, I don't think anyone has come up with a fair way of squaring the circle. The recent RFL discussion paper concluded double the maximum penalty to 12 points, since under the new funding arrangements, unlike now that would not lead to likely oblivion. Still punishes and deters the future owners though. Not the guilty men.

And NO MORE SECRET BLOODY LOANS OR ADVANCES! Then, we might just get a bit of daylight shone on all these murky goings on, early enough to maybe even fix it. And, if that means that the rest of the competition knows that XYZ club is struggling financially, tough bloody tìt. If that club expects help from the competition as a whole, it has to accept that its circumstances and situation become known at least to the rest of the clubs affected.