The farce has reached epic proportions. Everyone - and I mean everyone - KNOWS that NO buyer will buy unless they have a cast iron assurance that they take over the SL contract.

The very thought that someone out there might buy it on spec, immediately rush into signing up what players and staff remain, and take one almighty punt that we won't in fact be playing in the Championship, is just risible.

If there were a buyer or buyers interested in bidding on the basis that they want to run a Championship club, or aren't bothered either way, then that would be great, but as those people exist only in the figment of fevered imaginations, as do prospective buyers who would immediately start off by wasting £1.5m in cold blood, to pay off what were the old club's debts.

Surely those offers with 'minor conditions' (quote) should be rejected on that very basis!? - 'conditional'.

I've never seen an offer to buy a company that wasn't full of conditions. Mostly of the "in the event of war or natural disasters" type. I can understand the RFL ruling out certain conditions, but all of them?

I do not think for one minute the RFL ruled out a bid that included ANY conditions, and certainly not f[iorce majeure[/i.

It seems pretty clear, surely, that the RFL have refused to consider any bids where as a precondition the applicant seeks guarantees that:

1 - the club will not lose its SL status; and/or

2 - the RFL will undertake to assign the head lease to the applicant.

Both seem not at all unreasonable to me? Since the first depends on the stance taken by the other SL clubs and their owners, and the RFL cannot speak for them - and in any case, they gave no such assurances in the past; and the second depends very much on the terms being offered and in the context of the wider offer?

If I had to guess, should a bid come forward that the RFL would wish to see succeed, I suspect the RFL would informally make it known whether or not they envisaged any significant issues with such wishes, or at least what would need to be done to pave the way to the applicant receiving a satisfactory response in the future. And, thereby, they can deter any bid deemed to be undesirable. But I speculate.