Doesn't a visa application have to have support from a UK employer? If so, then surely the visa application will fail. Presumably the contract is only valid if a visa is secured. So, what if the agent forgot to ensure that the contract required that the Bulls were obliged to support a visa application?

Surely any player or agent who thought they had signed for a team in August would have regularly asked a lot of questions about why the signing hadn't been announced, when loads of others had been signed in the interim? And surely they would have wondered why a visa hadn't appeared much sooner than now?

Sounds like a dodgy agent trying to pull a fast one. Just need to hope that that dodgy agent isn't also a clever dodgy agent who intentionally draws teams into committing whilst then ensuring that they'll think that it won't go ahead and end up signing anothr instead.

Aww, turn that frown upside down Mr Rainyface

But if a contract was signed, it had to be submitted within 48 hours. After that, we either wouldn't have been able to submit it, or else we would have faced some sort of penalty. As Orford came up months later (according to Walker's alleged signing date), his availability must be disregarded entirely from the matter.

That's to satisfy the RLF Operating Rules and, I would guess, they'd expect any contract to be signed by both parties. (And as the RFL looked in to the case we can guess that it wasn't)

As to whether a contract had in actual fact been made between the Bulls and Walker (you don't need to have signed something to have made a contract)... that would be up to a court.

it was suggested to me by a fax fan today, that if walker is convinced he had a valid contract with us then that would mean we're due a transfer fee from catalans.