"just cause you feel it doesn't mean it's there" - Thom Yorke

"if you believe there is a man in the moon" Michael Stipe.

"oompah! oompah! stick it up yer jumper!" - unknown.

I can't top that!!

"If a picture paints a thousand words then why can't I paint you" - who loves ya baby

could it just be the rfl cannot give the same amount of protection to clubs that thay had been doing for the last few years simply because we now have relegation

Its a valid point but i guess the arguament would be that they should never have given anyone protection in the first place.
The more the fish struggles on the line the more the sediment murkies the water.

Who has been protected?

I suppose from a franchise point of view, all 14 clubs have been protected but I suspect you mean more than that?

I would guess it could be argued that Crusaders, Bulls, London, Salford, Hull KR have all received some help from the RFL at some point over the last few years. Even our own chairman has said that the RFL have supported us massively in our bid to stay out of administration this year.
I guess it comes down to your interpretation of the word.
To suggest that in a P adn R season it is more important that the RFL is less helpful is hypocritical though, as they should play a straight bat all the time, maybe then they would be less likely to make themselves look like bungling fools?

But how can they play with a straight bat when they are happily letting one of the clubs have half the Sky money,think it's more bent than straight

This, a thousand times this.

This is promising, but could you just work seagulls and trawlers into it, maybe?

The key event, in all this, was when the RFL gave us after a request from our then-chairman Mr Hood, a secret £700k loan in September 2011

That screwed us completely. You could argue that they were trying to "protect" us, but it laid the way for the stripping of our last asset, and both the insolvency events since then.

Bottom line, the RFL £700k intervention got Bradford into that (2012) season and no more. Then all the rubbish about "competition integrity" kicked in.

Bradford lost their main asset, which the RFL took to cover their increasingly stupid looking decision to give us an unsecured loan. (6 months later the administrator offered creditors SFA. I've always wondered why he didn't look at the RFL deal which effectively made them preferred creditors to the detriment of the taxpayers & everyone else.)


Bradford built up another 8months of debt, thereby ensuring administration.

Bradford went to the fans, and used up all that goodwill.

If the RFL had said no in September 2011, Bradford would have entered administration in the preseason. With less debt, still holding an asset (so more attractive to investors - maybe a better quality of investor), and still able call on the fans goodwill.

That RFL intervention screwed us completely. Our directors must have made a compelling case. I don't know who to blame more for it. The directors who sold it to the RFL, or the RFL who bought it....

i cant give better answers than kinleycat has given

if they had said no in sept 2011, would it mean Bradford entered admin and hence the RFL would have had to revoke the 2012-2014 franchise 3 year SL licence