www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... _/?ref=rss Next season is really going to be a dead rubber at this rate, what with London and Wakefield already an issue, now the Bulls joining them. Such a shame on the back of this great World Cup. Kind of highights why the top league should be restricted to 12 teams even more.

www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/n ... _/?ref=rss Next season is really going to be a dead rubber at this rate, what with London and Wakefield already an issue, now the Bulls joining them. Such a shame on the back of this great World Cup. Kind of highights why the top league should be restricted to 12 teams even more.

BOARD OUTLINE BULLS' POSITION
THE BOARD of directors last night provided season-ticket holders with a full and frank analysis of the club's current position, insisting the Bulls are not on the verge of administration.
Chairman Mark Moore and fellow directors Andrew Calvert and Ian Watt addressed a packed Coral Stand, outlining their intentions to rebuild relations and secure the club's long-term future.
After taking full control of the business approximately six weeks ago, Mr Moore and his fellow board members have unearthed information which has proved detrimental to the stability of the club.
A whole host of financial issues and outstanding debts have been uncovered, which if not dealt with professionally could drive the club towards administration once more.
Loans taken out against the club have recently been discovered in addition to a variation of commercial agreements which were signed off, devaluing the Bulls' corporate offerings.
A spokesperson for the board of directors said: "The last administrative team struggled to understand the full impact of running this club and stepped away from the business with large outstanding debts, which the Bulls are now recovering from.
"Concerts staged last year ran at a financial loss, estimated to be in region of £100,000, and the costs keep on coming.
"The loans, both in terms of their size and nature, which have been made against the Bulls, have only come to light in the past four weeks.
"Poor leadership and a lack of commercial know-how, from earlier this year, has sadly turned away many traditional sponsors – and income. Again, we now have to recover.
"We have lost a lot of our suppliers due to non-payments and a lack of communication and engagement with them."
The previous administrator handed first-team head coach Francis Cummins an unrealistic playing and backroom budget, of which exact figures have only recently been fully disclosed.
And, as a direct result, the board of directors must now make hard decisions and implement tough cost-cutting measures in order for the Bulls to survive.
"This is likely to mean staff redundancies, across a range of departments, as well as budget reductions," said the spokesperson.
"Areas of the business have been allowed to dangerously overspend and this is now going to have an obvious impact on the club.
"Season-ticket sales are vastly down on forecasted projections and, like last season, the club will again receive half of its allocated central funding due to the agreement made between the Super League and the former board at the time of initial purchase.
"As a club we are left with no choice but to make difficult decisions in a bid to streamline the business.
"We believe we are working with manageable debts, but the fact that we no longer have 10,000-15,000 people turning out on our terraces means we will have retract as a business.
"Our incomings simply do not match our current outgoings, so over the next few days we have to make tough decisions on every business unit in the club.
"The goal for next year is now to survive, compete and win back the trust of supporters and previous sponsors, while looking forward to receiving our full allocation of central funding ahead of 2015.
"We want build up relationships, while investing in our current and traditional income generators, such as, our retail and corporate facilities.
"We are currently searching for – and are in conversations with – new income generators, which will help the core of the business move forward."
The board of directors have moved to thank supporters who attended last night's fans forum, where season-ticket holders were also granted opportunities to hold one-on-one discussions with various club officials.
Following the event's completion several parties came forward and agreed player sponsorship deals for the coming campaign as part of their backing of the new board, for which Mr Moore and his fellow directors are extremely grateful for.

Imo cut it to 12 teams asap with p+r it might actually help Wakey and the Dulls re-build long term.
As for London i'd cut them loose now & go with 13 teams with the London fixtures becoming byes and teams getting the 4 pts automatically if Shefield/Fev or Fax cant raise a squad to compete.

Isn't one of the franchise criteria to have a stable financial underpinning?

We know the RFL have a soft spot for Bradford but will they engineer new Franchise criteria to ensure that the Bulls stay in SL?

So its everybody else's fault then G?

Couldn't agree more.

Whilst it is blindingly and depressingly obvious that there has been appalling mismanagement at the Bulls, quite what the SL clubs believed they would achieve by penny pinching half of the Bulls' funding is anyone's guess.

Finally, someone understands.

Seconded. It should never have been put to a vote in the first place.

The people dealing with this mess are not the ones who created it. They've found themselves hamstrung for no other reason than self-serving short sightedness by the SL member clubs. As a result, people are going to lose their jobs. It's actually quite sickening.

So they've bought the club, without realising what a state it was in?

I look forward to their lawsuit against whoever did the due diligence in that case.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of how the club got into this mess, to be bleating about it now primarily because you didn't do your homework when you bought into it is a bit rich.

It's like listening to Cameron and Osborne banging on about how it's all Labour's fault.

I was obviously wrong. I thought the reason the Sky monies were halved was because sky money had already been advance to the bulls to keep them going.

The RFL advanced a quarter of a million to pay wages while the Bulls were in administration, but IIRC the loss of central funding was insisted on by the other SL clubs as a condition of allowing the Bulls to remain in SL rather than relegating them.

Allowing them to continue on an equal footing to everyone else once their debts had been cleared by a CVA was considered unfair by the other clubs.

Thought they were going away from franchises and back to P&R after current franchise period.

In that case I agree with the sentiments above.

I would hate to see Bradford go out of business and cause a number of people to lose their jobs.
But how many times can you blame others for the way the club has been run?
Time after time we keep hearing how the BOD have lost grip on their finances, not understood how bad the debt is etc etc.
Surely any decent business man would make doubly sure everything was above board and there were no hidden debts prior to buying into the club.
Why should they get away with it and expect handouts all the time due to pish poor management?
They even went into administration and shed some of their debts probably leaving some creditors still waiting for their money.
Why on earth didn`t the administrator identify the problem then?
I feel sorry for the employees and the fans on what was a great club.
But maybe a drop into the lower divisions might be the only answer.
Lets see how much support London will get when they end up in the same boat.
No doubt "for the good of the game" money will be found to bail them out too.
I certainly wont be coughing up any more of my hard earned cash to help them raise more funds.