Quote Ferocious Aardvark="Ferocious Aardvark":BOW:
Two points
That much is clear.
Tosh. This "claim" means nothing. I say I "concluded correctly" too. Equally meaningless.
I am no accountant but I do not believe that the RFL carries out any sort of "audit" in the sense you mean. And my problem with this claim is that the answer to your implicit question would be that the RFL knew the Bulls were effectively trading whilst insolvent but loaned them money. I don't buy it.
I don't see any serious failing on the part of the RFL. We know so little about the smallprint of the deals but what little has emerged seems to only indicate a governing body trying to help keep afloat a club with cashflow issues. Not for the first time, not for the last.
Of course "something different" might have happened. The RFL might have refused to do anything and the club might have gone rapidly down the pan, for one thing. Would you have been happy then?
That is a contradiction in terms. Someone who is not interested in buying is no sort of "alternative" that I recognise! Anyway, who were these consortia? Were they even worth tuppence? Or just pie-in-the-sky merchants?
"The books". What "books"? If you mean they saw the size of the debts, then that doesn't wash, as whatever deal they advanced, they buy from the administrator free from debts. So what else do you mean? (Genuine question - if you mean it wasn't being managed properly pre-admin -that would surely be irrelevant to any new purchaser who would surely be putting in their own team)
if they want to continue to cause needless confusion, what can anyone do? Presumably it suits the RFL (who have already pretty much admitted that they don't feel at liberty to give anything like the whole story) to nuttily blame "conditions" rather than have to make decisions and give simple answers to simple questions.
WHAT INTERVENTION though? Who would have intervened? How would they have done it? If there was anyone able to, why did they not do it?
What is the scale of the disaster? Can you give me a link to the figures? All I've seen is two wildly contrasting scenarios advanced via the press through Hood, and Caisley's appointees, seasoned by yet more disinformation from the bank. What was the scale of the disaster then, and how is it worse now? What money have we spent since, that we could have avoided spending?
Bottom line is your view seems to me to be just a bowl of wishful thinking, sprinkled with hindsight. In reality, it was up to the (what we now know to have been) warring factions within the club to bring the situation to a head and they all failed to act. The majority of the blame is on those who were running the club, a very substantial share of the blame is with the others who were not only seemingly washing their hands of it all, but allegedly not even prepared to meet and talk.
And to me, (not that there is now any point to this navel-gazing) therein lies the answer to your claims; at that time the Board and shareholders were hopelessly and irreconcileably divided, poles apart, and seemingly remain so. Given that paralyzing situation, I don't see ANYTHING that could have been done, unless that lot had done it. Between them, they owned the club, and without their agreement, nobody else had any way of getting in.'"
So on what basis did the RFL lend the club 700k? On Peter Hood's word and nothing else? As a comparison I'm pretty sure the RFL sent its people into the Crusaders when they experienced difficulties. This became public knowledge. In the Bulls case they appeared simply hand over 700k and keep it secret. I'm not an accountant and I think it's really good that you're not one either. Even allowing for this, how many repayments would need to be missed before you thought, 'er there's a problem here'?
In this context they then negotiated, without any reference to the shareholding of the Bulls or the member clubs to purchase the lease on Odsal Stadium to 'preserve an iconic stadium' when they knew this wasn't true. You don't think this sequence is unusual but I do.
By potential consortia I'm assuming what Guilfoyle meant was that they withdrew when they saw the potential liabilities going forward against the likely income. Three consortia withdrew, the ABC consortia and now Khan/Sutcliffe have made offers. This makes 5 consortia. I don't know who they are but they expressed an interest.
The RFL could have intervened if by no other means saying, 'no Peter, you can't have 700k'. Cibaman makes the case a few posts back. We would have got to where we were last March much sooner and still holding the lease. The club would have entered administration having not lost both the RFL's and the supporters cash. The lease would not now be a 'condition' and the RFL sat with a £1.5 million piece of paper. These factors mean the situation is now much, much worse than the day Peter said 'give me 700k please'.
Had they made the loan conditional on the RFL's accountants entering the club we may even have an independent view on the state of the club. Something you believe we don't have (probably correctly).
I certainly don't disagree with your views on the main shareholders but the conduct of the RFL is inexplicable and this is the point of the 'navel gazing'. The RFL share some of the responsibility for the situation as is. They've acted as governing body of a licensing process which is meant to have an audit and also as a bank of last resort to a club asking for money and appear to have never taken the most cursory interest in the clubs finances. It doesn't take wishful thinking or hindsight to say this situation is very, very odd.
