Quote: Bullmans Parade "If reports at the time are to be believed, weren't the other bids conditional upon being able to buy back the lease on the stadium, or something to that effect? And the RFL were reluctant to let that happen.'"
I don't think they all did;
rlLamb/Irvine bid 9th Jan2017rl
[i"We’ve provided proof of funding, have set out a three-year plan and can provide guarantees. Now we’ll see how it compares with the other bids.
We’re not property developers; we’re not interested in buying Odsal. We’re wanting to establish a rugby league club that has longevity. Rather than having a boom and bust period, with our financial model we don’t feel like we are over-expecting and believe this is sustainable."[/i
We can only take direct quotes like that on face value, so 1 of the 4 final bids said they didn't want Odsal.
Also worth noting that Chalmers original bid to get us out of admin did involve discussions over the stadium with the RFL, which put him as preferred bidder by the RFL, only to have it knocked back by the administrator;
rlChalmers preferred bid rejected by administrator 29th Dec 2016rl
[iThe previous preferred party - a consortium including New Zealander Andrew Chalmers - had their bid for the Championship club rejected by administrators.
That was despite having been backed by the RFL following lengthy talks over Bradford’s Odsal home, the leasehold of which is owned by the sport’s governing body.[/i
It really was a tangled web, but luckily for the RFL they still ended up with their preferred bidder in charge of newco after the oldco was shut down in Jan....how lucky was that?