The bulls fans need to just accept what (if any) punishment comes their way.

All this fog knitting of semantics and squirming really has shown them up for the worms that they are, a skidmark on the underpants of super league.

But clearly the current Bulls is a continuation club and as such, a points penalty is appropriate.

If it's not a continuation club, this new entity has to apply to start in C2.

They will. (And anyway don't have a choice)


That would be a good description of your status in this forum.

No such thing exists.


I'm not against points penalties, but don't see the connection. The RFL's rules which I quoted, to the annoyance of those who want to simply spout uninformed comment, make it crystal that sanctions are potentially applied to the new owners.


No, again the rules I quoted explain what it can do, it can apply to join the RFL and it can apply for the SL licence. Same as you could.

You see, the advantage of READING what I put, instead of various people having a hissy fit that it's hard cos there's a lot of words innit, would be that you'd actually understand the true position.

The new club has gained a commercial advantage over other clubs by buying from administration. If they had bought the club, debts and all, prior to administration, then there would be less money to buy players with. By buying from administration, you pay less, owe less, and so can spend more on the players. Thus a points penalty applies to the new organisation.

FA: hard work,isn't it?

FA, you can chose to be as obtuse as you like in wilfully missing the point. Which way do you want it?

Is the current club the old Bulls and liable in some extent for the admin mess, or is it an entirely new entity which should have applied for entry to C2?

Assuming the former, you accept that the current incumbents are in line for what some Bulls fans refer to as "punishment"?

Why has the leeds rhinos entity and abstract concept been rewarded with 2 points for beating simon moran's warrington entity?

As the paymaster and decision maker, gary hetherington should have received some renumeration for his victory on friday night to reward his players and fans for the victory as he see's fit.

NO. RFL sanctions are imposed on the CLUB. Eg a six point deduction.

Clubs continue as Members of the RFL so long as they have an extant owner. Albeit owners come and go.

The Bradford club record for tries in a season is 63 by Jack McLean in 1951-52. The fact there have been various owners (Bradford Northern ltd, Bradford Northern (1964) ltd, Bradford bulls holdings ltd, OK Bulls ltd, Bradford bulls (2014) ltd or whatever) is irrelevant.

Sanctions are applied to the CLUB - and potential new owners decide whether or not they want to buy the Club in those circumstances.

Steve O'Connor's Widnes club were unable to take the licence the first time round because it was so soon after Vaughan's Widnes club crashed and burned. The RFL punished the club.

Not necessarily so. You would have to assume that had the new owners run the old club, they would have made such a porridge of it as they did. They might have done a lot better with the same money. Also the idea that the Bulls have a commercial advantage over the rest of SL clubs does sound like rubbish, doesn't it? Any of you want to swop places? No? Didn't think so.


A points penalty MAY apply and in the rules it is nothing to do with what you say. I didn't write them.

:me5undm7
What point is that?

:me5undm7
No, and no. Obviously.

:me5undm7
Yes.

:me5undm7
It might have to. The procedure (as we at Bradford know only too well) is you have to join the RFL, then apply to play in whatever league. It is up to them if they admit you and it is up to them/SLE if they accept the league you want to play in. There is no "should have" here. Anyone, anytime, can apply to join, and can apply to play in any league.


Look, man, it is ME that quoted the SPECIFIC RULE in FULL that leads to the RFL being able to apply sanctions TO THE NEW OWNERS. A bit nonsensical, then, to ask me, of all people?

It is.

What happens next is that the people who ask me strings of specific questions and make numerous specific claims then get all y and feign annoyance when I answer them.



It's apparently OK to MAKE 20 points. But absolutely not on to RESPOND to the points made.

So the rules lie. I see.


Sothe rules that require the owning company to be admitted to membership are wrong. I see.


Not at all. Fans identify with their hometown or chosen team and always will. They aren't that bothered about the legalities. But you're confusing spiritual or emotional attachment. Nobody, for example, ever felt the slightest kinship or affection or loyalty as a fan to Bradford Bulls Holdings Ltd. But, that entity was the member of the RFL.


Rubbish. Even you must know that. The new owners have been granted membership and a temporary licence and as such, under the rules (which sadly I quoted and sadly you won't read) it is a term of that admission to membership that the RFL can apply sanctions to that member. Unless of course, yet again, the written rules are wrong.

If there was no new owner of the Bulls, then there WOULD BE NO Bradford Bulls club, and as such, nothing to apply sanctions to.

Of course there is a commercial advantage. By buying it from administration, the new owner buys it with reduced liabilities, as it is likely that the administrator had negotiated reduced repayments with the creditors. Are you trying to argue, seriously, that a new owner would have been better off buying OK Bulls lock, stock and barrel prior to administration, with all of those debts? Of course not. So by buying from administration, the owner has gained a commercial advantage, as he or she has bought a club with reduced liabilities, whereas all the other clubs from last year have gone into this year with whatever liabilities there were from last year.

It doesn't matter whether the new owners would have run it better. The simple fact is that they start with the new Bulls with a cleaner sheet than that owned by the old Bulls at the end of 2013, which they had the option of buying but didn't. No other club starts the year with the liabilities reduced.

As I've said elsewhere, however, the extent to which pre-existing liabilities are met should mitigate the points deduction, as that lessens the advantage over other clubs.

Whether it is sustainable is a different issue. Unfortunately, success in sport is cyclical. Go back eight years and Huddersfield and Warrington were pants and Wigan weren't great. You have to readjust.

To back up Sluggers comment regarding a commercial advantage.

The Bulls chairman voted to accept a new TV deal which included a £300,000 payment to be paid before the season started. Just a day later and prior to the payment the OK Bulls went into Administration.

I wonder how many of the OK Bulls creditors could have been fully paid by that £300,000?

How is that not gaining a commercial advantage?

Some of the bulls creditors will be paid by that £300k. The players would have become creditors, they will be paid using it.

That £3000k was part of the assets bought by the new company, if anyone thought that £300k + all other assets minus all ongoing liabilities were worth more than what the new co paid for the Bulls assets, and that includes all the bulls creditors then these other people could have bought it.

They didnt.

its incredibly disingenuous to look at one revenue stream and claim that it could have been paid to the bulls creditors. That £300k was a payment for a service, the bulls would have needed to perform that service to earn that money, whether paid prior or post completion of that service. Had the Bulls done what you propose and gone in to admin after recieving that money they would still not have completed the service they had been paid for and whilst they could have paid off company A, they would simply have a new creditor(in this case the RFL)

Really poor straw man.




Another straw man. The new owner has bought a business:
a) not knowing what sanctions will be imposed on him
b) knowing full well that the rules specifically empower the possibility of sanctions by the RFL
c) with no guarantee that he will even be playing in SL
And neither you nor I know whether those liabilities ultimately are reduced or not, if so, by what amount. And the consensus seems to be that (rightly) the RFL will take into account any loss to creditors in deciding on any sanctions. And I am the only person to actually quote chapter and verse what gives them the power to so sanction a new member.

Your position[i seems[/i* to be that none of these things are relevant and that there IS a "commercial advantage" because, well, there just is. When anyone can see that it is inevitable the Bulls will start off operating under a huge commercial disadvantage, whatever happens.
* Except ...


But this is the point we have been making, isn't it? Weird.

Smokey - I was suggesting that the Bulls went into Admin before receiving the money and thus protecting it from the creditors of OK Bulls and will receive it into Bulls 2014 once ratified by RFL board.

They will then use this to potential pay off most of their creditors but crucially not the director loan from their 'self proclaimed saviour'

This means they have a commercial advantage!

This is true. At the point they went into administration, the Bulls had received the money they had received up until that point. But they had not received any money which they had not yet received.


Illogical. If the money had come in the day before admin then the administrator's pot for creditors would have been increased by the same sum, so your point is a non-point.


He was the Bulls saviour. Had he not stepped in there would have been no Bulls. Also, odd people keep referring to repayment of any "loan", but nobody has pointed to any evidence of any request for any such repayment. So it's just gossip. It is also uninformed gossip.

Bulls have been deducted 6 points

Party in Wakefield?

www.therfl.co.uk/news/article/29 ... ompetition

www.therfl.co.uk/news/article/29 ... ompetition

Fingers crossed the board haven't yet settled with any creditors.

They have now withdrawn their offer to buy the club entirely so right now nobody's getting paid.