..... and all this underhand pillaging would be via an unconditional bid ? Really ?

Now if you'd said that City may be motivated by moving the Bulls to VP. Then they use use their collected leverage to squeeze the Council to fund the purchase of VP for both clubs from a sale of Odsal then ...... possibly.

There has to something in it for City, just like there has to be something in it for any bidder. The fact this bid is supposed to be unconditional rearding the lease suggests they have no interest in Odsal. However if the City are working with the Council and there is a bigger SV picture then I could be wrong.

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.