absolutely ridiculous decision.

It seems the club had not been told of the reasons for refusing the Bulls application.

BRADFORD Bulls are incredibly shocked, disappointed and perplexed by this morning's decision not to grant the club an Elite Academy Licence.
We are struggling to understand any RFL strategy that apparently prevents young Bradford players playing for Bradford.
The decision, if left to stand, is immensely damaging to the sport, the city and the welfare of 90 plus young players and staff.
The club has not received any detailed feedback at this stage, so will be reserving our position until that is received, and we have a better understanding as to why the RFL believe an extremely productive line of young talent can be laid to waste.
In the meantime, Head of Youth Leigh Beattie and his extremely talented group of coaches and players will turn out with immense pride in the red, amber and black against Hull FC tomorrow at 2pm.

I am appalled but not surprised by the decision. I take it from the Bulls statement that we were told of the overall decision but not where we were deemed to have failed.
Cas and Hull KR ( after recruiting John Bastian) are two other notable casualties giving Wakefield and Hull FC a monopoly in their areas. Yet Warrington ( in the same catchment area as Saints and Wigan) survive.
Short sighted and a kick in the teeth for the 90 youngsters and staff ( and their families) currently in our youth set up.
To me it’s also a clear sign that the powers that be want to retain the status quo in terms of funding and membership of the elite.
As Ricky Tomlinson might say
“ Fewer and better my a**e”

The RFL in their press release on social media stated that clubs whose applications were unsuccessful have been provided with an explanation, and advised that they will be able to reapply in 2024.

Somebody's telling porkies.

I'd love to see in detail the reasons given why we were turned down. It might be that we've not been keeping to our previously high standards? If so it'd be very interesting to hear why. Or it could be that the criteria were rigged from the start to exclude certain clubs? Perhaps someone could provide a link to past and current criteria so we could compare?

“Many of the clubs have a great track record of consistently developing senior elite players for England"

Is this actually true?

Think it's telling they isn't any defined criteria. And some idiots want to being licensing back. Reading Cas's reasons, apparently they haven't produced enough first team players for their geographical area. That reason can't apply to us.

We have probably brought more players through than most.
We're the only team in a big city.
The facilities are some of the best in the country.

I honestly can't see what we fail on.

Its quite simply politics and money. It looks like we've missed out due to them only wanting two championship clubs and then wanting Newcastle & London due to their location. I understand the long term plan with Newcastle but there's very few Geordies knocking around in the 3 top leagues at the moment. You don't sacrifice one of your most succeasful pathways with 90+ players on the system for it. You find extra funding for that long term project.

As I said it's telling there isn't set criteria as its obvious we score highly than others who have a license.

I don't want to go comparing to other clubs as it most creates petty arguments and to be fair I think most fans are shocked thier reducing the academy numbers.

Well I will await some more details and what the future holds for Bradford but it doesn’t exactly encourage me to believe their is much a of future for Bradford. The academy was probably one of the few positive things to talk about in recent years. With that gone.. what is left?

I assume this all boils down to money and the ever decreasing pot for all clubs?

Yeah it certainly looks that way. It's even more stark when SL clubs have their licenses revoked too.

Our academy has been the one shining light since 2012. In some pretty dark times it's been the one thing you could point to and say that was something positive. Had it not been for us running an academy we would not have come back in 2017 as we simply wouldn't have had enough players. Despite all that we've still produced top quality players even if we've not hung onto them all.

Now it's gone and you wonder what the point is really. Without a big money backer SL is out of the question. You can't build long term without an academy either. Our position in the championship is cemented. The future seems to be looking like a reserve grade for SL clubs. No thanks.

This pretty much sums it up for me too. After all the issues in the past 15 years, this.

Just turns you off the game in this country doesn't it?

Couldnt. sum it up any better my self. Its sickening.

Current former acadamy players currently in SL


Saints . Lees and Bentley
Wigan . Bateman
Giants . Wilson, O'Brian, Joe Wardle
Salford. Addy, Roberts,
Leeds. Donaldson, Mellor
Hull. Scott
Rovers. Storton, Ryan, Mudodti, Milnes
Cas. Truman

Throw in Whitehead and Tom Burgess

In our last league game 7 of our 17 were acadamy graduates. And no doubt there will be more through out the year

Throw in god knows how many others playing in the Champ and League 1 (Sykes, Atkins, James, Cook, Kopout, Butterworth, Tomlinson, Wilkinson, Rickett,Peltier, Conroy etc) and then tell me Bradford dont have an acadamy that produces players.

The biggest problem with RL in this country is the size of the pool of talent that players come from. World Class players are rare and you need many varied and different player development plans to mine them. This is why we have very low strength in depth and ultimately continue to fail at international level. With the world being the way it is we can't attract foreign players of the same quality as say 20 years ago and ultimately the product on the pitch is failing because of it. The result is less interest and less revenue coming into the sport.

This is a decision made by RFL after having pressure applied to them by myopic people more bothered about their own self interest than what's good for the game. Ultimately it will be completely self defeating as we'll fall further behind at international level and public interest in the super league will continue to fall. All for the sake of another cash grab by old men that will be retired in a few years.

John Kear is keeping his powder dry at the moment: https://twitter.com/TheGameCaller/statu ... 0624757763 No comment from Wood.

John Kear is keeping his powder dry at the moment: https://twitter.com/TheGameCaller/statu ... 0624757763 No comment from Wood.

So after we were forced to maintain an academy after financial ruin we are now told it isn’t up to standard? despite the already mentioned crop of players throughout super league, NRL and championship who Bradford developed. Now Huddersfield are forced to actually develop their own players instead of poaching Bradford’s, it will be interesting to see the actual quality of their academy.