P.S.
We've had to put up with this for 4 years.

With regard to the penalties, these were not for administration, it was worse than that, the club went into liquidation. The scenario you therefore had was to get permission to join the RFL and operate as Bradford Bulls. It's a weird hybrid situation, and I don't agree with the RFL's actions, but can see where they are coming from: the rest of the clubs who didn't go tits, to whom the continued existence of a Bulls in the league with "no penalty" would seemingly be unacceptable. The fact that by liquidation the whole thing has been crushed, apparently counts for nothing.

We were told that the offer set out was it, mon-negotiable. To me, though, the whole idea of making us start in Champ was clearly just for the RFL's benefit, so as not to screw up the fixtures, or have to deal with a last minute "promotion" to put us where we should have been, C1. That's where you start. That's were very clearly we should have started. And as s completely new company and club, starting from scratch a week before the season, there should have been no way we should have had any points deduction in C1. There would be no logic in doing so.

But the RFL had already decided it was Champ or nowt, and with hindsight that was as fatal a stipulation as it seemed to many ( most? ) of us before a pass was thrown.

I do get why they insist the "rugby debts" are paid, as if you want to play under the same label in the same league, then it's clearly a hard one to swallow for other clubs who were owed money by "the Bulls". Not saying it's logical, but I see it. But ATEOTD we got the RFL out of a hole, including their obligation under the lease for rugby to be played at Odsal.

We are all disappointed at the last 2 months and it is not my aim to suggest everything has been done perfectly, I'm sure some of the mistakes speak for themselves. But it seems to me that just like the RFL holed the OK ship below the waterline, they torpedoed this one.

This incidentally was not a view confirmed by AC at the meeting, he was circumspect preferring I think to just stay neutral on the stipulations, maybe he thought as he can't change it, what would be the point.

Just a final word to mention that for the record we were 8th in the league when OK departed, a million pounds lighter.

Basic common sense really unless you think the opinion on here isnt that of the general population of Bulls fans and suddenly sponsorship for next season has gone up.

It also must have been in the back of the RFL's mind that Bradford could have been in a position to spoil the Toronto party and they wouldnt want that.

I know we have a squad of full time professional players but if we hadn't have had the liquidation and been on a steady footing how many of these players would be in our first team squad.
Yes they are blamed for losing to part timers but many of our team are poor quality or just not ready for first team rugby and would be still unknown to us.
I always found it hard to blame an apprentice or an unskilled person if they made a mistake if they had done their best but they simply weren't up to it. I look at these players in the same way. Most of them probably are at their best but we need them to perform at a level they aren't capable of. They were the ones that were left or are the ones that are not needed at their own team.

]

Yet the main sponsors money went to the previous administration along with a number of season ticket payments

In terms of actual money coming into the current holding company then sponsorship, central funding and season tickets will all see an increase next year. Any amount coming in will be greater than the £0 they got this year. The sponsorship and vast bulk of the season ticket money went to the previous owners and disappeared in the admin. The central fundin was withheld by RFL to pay rugby debts of the previous owner.

Don't worry guys Big Nige won't be taking over a bottom division team next season

so he taking over fax instead?

I listened to Karl Harrison before the game and when asked who was going down he said he believes nobody will. The Championship chairmen have been called to an RFL meeting next week and Karl thinks the Championship will be expanded by two to make CH1 purely for growing clubs - forgot the name he called it. If so, it will need to be announced very soon as clubs will be deciding on their budgets for next year.
His thoughts on full time is interesting. He says there are many good players out there that would come to us but can't because they have good jobs or own businesses. He said he would put us part time or on a hybrid system so we could sign them while we are in a lower division. It sounds feasible when it is explained by someone of his knowledge. Karl is having a meeting with Chalmers next week about how to get players in. Gledhill jokingly said he should be our director of rugby. Many a true word said in jest I would say about that.
One worrying point was his lads with us want to stay with us and he would advise them to stay as money isn't everything at their age but he said the Bulls haven't started talking to them yet.

I wonder if a lot of things are being put on hold possibly till after the meeting with the RFL and what they are going to put to the clubs. If the RFL ask them to vote on increasing the league to 14 would they vote against it knowing that they will lose many 10s of thousands of pounds not just with losing us but a possible extra 4 games. Chairmen tend to look at the money first I would suspect.

I am now expecting to be playing in the lower league as this team can't win enough games to stay up and I just can't see us signing many more when we really needed them two months ago - but, I still have this gut feeling that something is going on in the background. What has happened so far just doesn't make sense and it wouldn't surprise me if the RFL announce no relegation and Chalmers just looks at fans and smiles and says "what a surprise" smiles again and wanders off. I am probably wrong but maybe not.

Heard the same...apparently fev have said they will walk if we are allowed to stay up...
Where to exactly I don't know, maybe the NRL?

Where have you heard this about Fev? I can't see why they would care that much either way, and it doesn't take a genius to see that it would hurt them financially if they lost the gate money from their game against us. Let's see how many they get at home to Toronto next season

Anyway I still can't see anything like that happening until 2019, but I guess we'll know more once this meeting is over with...

I apologise now to all other RL teams if by some "trick-of-hand" the Bulls are kept up next season just because the RFL have decided thats what they want.
It just makes a whole mockery of the situation.
We might as well not played at all this season if the end result didnt matter.
Its a farce, if it actually happens.

It's not a RFL plan they have been rail roaded in to it.