It wasn't a sponsorship deal. It was team ownership. Carnegie bought the Tykes off us (or a majority share), realised what a money pit they were and paid us £8 million to take them back.

Don't you wish Hetherington were running your club?

But unconcerned as a Taxpayer when it involves the Bulls playing in a brand new stadium!!! oops

Did you actually ask that question?

In your opinion.

Which of course you voiced to the relevant authority at the time the deal was done, it being a very public deal and reported on widely at the time.

You did register your concern didn't you ?

You do understand what the Uni got out of the deal as a business don't you ?

Whilst many of his staff may not have liked him there is no doubt that Simon Lee attempted to run the university as a business rather than the traditional "We'll just spend all the government grant and wait for the students to turn up" traditional University model, it upset those traditionalist academics but thats what happens when those who do not have to measure their salary by means of customer sales suddenly wake up in the real world.

Did you object to them sponsoring (and possibly saving) the Challenge Cup too or is that a different sort of public money ?

You did object to all of this at the time didn't you ?

Well, the "bank" Hetherington works for is doing very, very well so its' not a particularly good analogy at the moment in time.

There's a lot of concern being voice [iright now[/i, some time after the event by indignant, Rugby League, non-Leeds supporting, tax payers, that much is for sure.

I'll give Adey-bull the benefit of the doubt but I suspect much of this is motivated by jealousy that their club hasn'#t fostered the same kind of partnership that Leeds have with Carnegie.

You know what, I am a tax payer and I don't mind my tax money being spent for the benefit of Rugby League and sports in general. I get more benefit from that than if they spent it on the Arts, immigration or Moat maintenance for Tory Peers.

The question mark at the end was a bit of a give away.

Is a Bulls fan upset that his tax money is benefittiong Leeds Rugby any different to a Keighly fan being upset about his taxes benefitting the Bulls?

Oooh,good arra'!

I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of my feelings towards this. OK be miffed if Leeds arent your club and you arent seeing any of the wealth (although the prize money teams are getting from advancing in the Challenge Cup comes from the same source) but at least now there is tax payers money going into a game that actually needs a bit of investment.

When was the last time Rugby League actually got a nice massive multi-million pound handout from the national lottery or sports england? it rarely happens, bulk of the funding goes to grass roots football. While i dont stand against this, football is a multi billion pound trade and surely the football clubs should be investing in this sport. I see money spent on athletics, rugby union, basketball, cricket but compared to them RL gets jeff all

Quote: bewildered "I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of my feelings towards this. OK be miffed if Leeds arent your club and you arent seeing any of the wealth (although the prize money teams are getting from advancing in the Challenge Cup comes from the same source) but at least now there is tax payers money going into a game that actually needs a bit of investment. When was the last time Rugby League actually got a nice massive multi-million pound handout from the national lottery or sports england? it rarely happens, bulk of the funding goes to grass roots football. While i dont stand against this, football is a multi billion pound trade and surely the football clubs should be investing in this sport. I see money spent on athletics, rugby union, basketball, cricket but compared to them RL gets jeff all'" Sorry to disappoint(?) you but RL will receive £29,408,341 funding over the period 2009-13. Source: www.sportengland.org/funding/ngb_investment.aspx

Quote: bewildered "I think you've hit the nail on the head in terms of my feelings towards this. OK be miffed if Leeds arent your club and you arent seeing any of the wealth (although the prize money teams are getting from advancing in the Challenge Cup comes from the same source) but at least now there is tax payers money going into a game that actually needs a bit of investment. When was the last time Rugby League actually got a nice massive multi-million pound handout from the national lottery or sports england? it rarely happens, bulk of the funding goes to grass roots football. While i dont stand against this, football is a multi billion pound trade and surely the football clubs should be investing in this sport. I see money spent on athletics, rugby union, basketball, cricket but compared to them RL gets jeff all'" Sorry to disappoint(?) you but RL will receive £29,408,341 funding over the period 2009-13. Source: www.sportengland.org/funding/ngb_investment.aspx

Coming from someone who talks complete sense all the time, I'll leave the smileys off this one, people can add their own!!

I love how Flyingprop gets shown up by the bulls fans for being a clueless idiot, so in turn, posts the link on here in the hope that the Leeds fans will rescue him from further embarassment