Having Nigel Wood in charge didnt help either and pushing through with a nick name that nobody wanted. What ever did happen to him?

Other than a few players left on contract, what do Bradford actually have in terms of a squad, back office etc?

he went on to 'bigger' things...

I find myself torn here.

A lot has been said about Rangers FC up here and the situations are very similar. I was very much against Rangers being booted out of the SPL and supported the view that the 3rd division would have to be the punishment for them. However, the diffeence between them and the Bulls is the arrogance and underhand tactics Rangers used through media mouthpieces, the printing and reporting of lies and their holier than thou attitude over the 40 lesser clubs in Scotland.

Bradford seem to have the support that Rangers did not have from rival clubs and seem to have gone about this in a far more acceptable manner than the Ibrox club.

Still, I can't say there should be one rule for one and one for another. To slate Rangers yet try to defend Bradford would be wholly hypocritical of me and I cannot do it.

I must confess to having sympathy with the views of fans of other sides in this issue. Would I be happy to see a side with a history of salary cap breaches, Harrisgate and RL/Sky money bail-outs dine at the top table whilst my well run club looked on in envy? Of course not. But do I want Bradford in SL? Of course I do.

But lets' be honest, if we DO continue to be in SL then this has to be the last chance saloon. Any more problems and we have to get our licence revoked, pure and simple. The previous board(s) have caused the problem. Time to put it right. If not we should face the consequencies. It is not as if we have not had the warnings.

I've only read the first 5 pages of this thread - so my apologies if someone else has pointed this out but there seems to be some misconseption of what has happened.

Bradford Bulls have not gone bust, Bradford Bulls was simply a trading name of Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd - it is Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd that have gone bust.

OK Bulls Ltd have essentially (and I haven't seen the full details of the argeement so this is somewhat speculative) bought the rights to the trading name Bradford Bulls.

The Bradford Bulls were formed at the start of Super League, and as such can quite fairly (in the terms of the law - I'll get onto morals later) use previous years attendance and the "clubs" history in a licence application. People "follow" the trading name, and not the holding company.

The debt was with Bradford Bulls Holding Comapny - that has now gone bust so again, it is quite "right" that the debts of that company are not used. The debts were never held by Bradford Bulls (the trading name) they were held by Bradford Bulls Holding Company Ltd, and as such have nothing to do with the new licence application by OK Bulls Ltd.

Morally this may appear somewhat dubious - but this is the exact reason that holding companys exist, like it or not - and it's not only in sport that this happens.

So OK Bulls Ltd has a founding date of 2012 and cannot make any assumptions to the previous Bradford Bulls Holding Comapny Ltd founding date. Bradford Bulls has a founding date of the start of SL (I forget the year, was it 2000?) And can use this, along with the history of the club, they can also quite rightly maintain they they were previously known as Bradford Northern with whatever founding date that was.

It is a case that this means they can have their cake and eat it too - but that is the way the rules of RL are, the rules of Business and and the Law of the Country is.

Is it morally right, maybe not - that is a lot harder to judge.

The worst thing that ever happened to RL is full time professionalism. The sport is just not big enough.
A return to promotion and relegation and a semi pro status would create a far more even playing field. The doorway would be open for any team to play at the top level, and relegation would not mean the death of a club as they could always try again next year.

some good points (super league started 1996 btw, the original bradford rugby club was founded in 1863 [? IIRC?] then Bradford Northern and Bradford Park avenue were formed from that club in 1907, we reformed in 1964, rebranded to bulls in 1996)


i keep hearing about having our cake and eating it, well, I've always been of the opinion that whats the point of having the cake if you're not going to eat it?

And you can kiss goodbye to RL ever being anything but a dying small town M62 sport.

I refuse to believe the Bulls situation has changed your colleagues' views of RL one iota. Do they dislike football due to its obscene money, player behaviour, scandals? Do they dislike yawnion that continues to copy RL, has its own financial crises, P&R farces? Do they dislike horse racing as it is corrupt to the core? Do they dislike cricket due to the ongoing corruption & match fixing? No, they dislike RL because it is a predominantly northern, working class, sport & they are narrow minded bigots.

The problem with the above is that with the move to a fully professional upper tier came the rather large cheque from Sky which could be bringing in perhaps 40% of the SL revenue. I know some less active fans will stay at home and watch the games on the box - so won't go through the turnstiles, but still leaves a very large net contribution from Sky. You could argue that we have two sports: SL and the "purer" version of the game your refer to above. This is very similar to American Football - a top tier rolling in media money - and a the more traditional college games. No interest in the game myself but I work for a US company and know a lot of the guys over there swear by college football.

Didn't find it to be dying in Sydney.

The professional game with no P&R?

Premier League Soccer here is doing reasonably well - with teams from Stoke, Wigan, Sunderland, Norwich, Reading, Southampton, Birmingham suburbs etc. They've got three up, three down. UK RL only needs one-up, one-down to sort things out. Or, tt, are you one of those guys that gets paid to sit in the smoke-filled rooms trying to plan everything?

if people are worried that a team that is promoted spends heavily and then get relegated and goes out of buisness then an easy solution is the promoted team is exempt from relegation until their 3rd season, this gives them time to put in place a youth structure and a decent playing squad and attract crowds with better results. If they finish bottom in year 1 and 2 the next lowest team that is not exempt gets relegated. Stops the yoyo effect of teams being promoted only to go straight back down