Given we were only allowed a 1 year probationary licence (a penalty which doesn't seem to have been enforced against any other club that has been in our circumstances) has there been any say on what happens next year?

The RFL seem to have made a rod for their own back with this thing.

There's been nothing specific apparently, or so we were told at the forum some time back. To be honest I can't see any logical reason why things won't just carry on as normal next year, unless some absolute disaster occurs.

I'd suspect this was just put in to keep an odd club sweet about the whole business over the close season but clearly no-one had thought it through or had a clue how to implement it, so it's just empty rhetoric, unless some unknown sub-committee is still working on it.

We could do with finding out soon. There's a fair few players out of contract come the end of this season, and if we don't find out soon we could end up in a similar position as to last year, with players uncertain on the future of the club and looking at other options, i.e other teams.

Tbh they need to make a decision in next month or so. We need to start re-signing players we want to keep and other clubs are allowed to talk to ooc players at end of May. It would be unfair to new owners to put us at a disadvantage in recruitment stakes a second year running.

Exactly, why should the Bulls be singled out for this treatment? Surely the new owners/board have done enough off field to show that they're committed to the club and the sport as well as the playing and coaching staff showing that commitment on the field despite not having the time to put together a team from bare bones of what was left by the rest of the league as well as having 1 arm tied behind their backs in terms of the Sky money being giving to the rest of the league.

Presumably they'll carry out some sort of financial evaluation?

I thought Salford's new owner had put in a bid for the whole Superleague to ensure the Devils win next year - maybe we should ask him

Like the one they did on our previous management and all the other clubs, when the licences were first issued you mean?

I think that process is as devalued as Osborne's plan to revitalise the economy..

I'm sure there's a logical reason, but can anyone explain why Salford haven't had their license questioned?

Did they not officially go into Administration or something? You would think with the sanctions put in place that meant they couldn't sign players and all that, it would have meant they had their license questioned too.

Not that they should lose it, and I don't want them to. Just not sure why we got ours almost recinded, and yet Salford seem to have been allowed to carry on as normal. As I say, I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation, I just don't know it.

There is. Salford did not go into administration. So we will never know how the RFL would have reacted if they had. Much to the relief of the RFL, no doubt.

I suspected it was something like that, thanks (I confess I don't know the ins and outs of things like that).

That's true Adey, though it's far from unfair to point out that with problems for Wakey, us and the Reds, the RFL's financial review process doesn't come out as being the sort of 'robust control', many seem to assume it is.

If you were to do a proper, in depth, warts-and-all audit of most sports clubs then you would find they are financially fooked. This is a situation that has worsened over the last few years, of course, as the recession bites, but in principle it has been like that for decades. Everyone actually knows this.

Only today, the results of a survey into soccer make grim reading for the optimists, a high percentage of the clubs who participated basically agree the clubs and the game are in a financial mire.

Anyone who genuinely believes that the threat of a full and in-depth audit by the RFL would somehow transform each club into a profitable entity, so that alone amongst sporting organisations, we would be the one with an all-profitable cast, must be some superoptimistic descendant of Mr. Micawber, with double optimism gene mutation, on hallucinogenic drugs. The only game in town right now is survival. If all the clubs manage to somehow do that, that would be a remarkable result in itself.

Another class of idiots seem to believe that not only should the RFL be able to identify those clubs who will go near-bust in the next year but that they, alone in the world, are the organisation that has THE ANSWERS and can ensure that any given club suddenly starts making pots of money, if only shown the error of their ways, and told the magic secrets of how they should go on in future.

We are in a triple-dip recession, and the vilest government in history is still putting the squeeze on every individual and every local company. Even the squeaks from the pips will soon be exhausted. Disposable income is decimated, funds available for sponsorship are as rare as rocking horse shhit, any form of fundraising is HAAARRRRD and costs money to put on, and may lose it, even the previously-available loan funding is now seriously choked, as the basstard banks consolidate their ability to divide the bonuses and, with impunity, ignore all government entreaties - indeed have Gideon arguing their case in Europe to be allowed to pay whatever obscene bonuses they want.

Some people need a serious reality check. The clubs we have will only remain intact with a combination of largesse, administrations, write-offs and desperate fundraising, until the country's finances take a very big upturn for the better, if they ever do. Dire straits are the order of the day, and I don't need anyone, including RFL financial gurus, to tell me that.

You may be right FA but will the RFL take the same pragmatic view and wave our license through now or sit on their hands and do nowt until it starts to have an adverse effect on our ability to plan for the future?

FA has got it quite right, [ihowever[/i as pointed out by the OP, the RFL still have the sword of Damocles hanging over us, the utilisation of which is presumably based on our financial position, or maybe, as I said earlier a lot of empty rhetoric to avoid crossing some club's 'red line', when the old management went down the pan.

Either way round we need to know pretty soon what is to happen - and to be honest, it hardly matters if their accountants just stick their fingers in the air and guess, we just need an answer.